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Tamil Nadu
By Our Special Correspondent
As Mr. Veerasami was not in the House at that time, the Opposition members, especially of the DMK and the Congress, questioned the Speaker's action and described it as "ultra vires". They said the Speaker had no powers to take suo motu action against a member in his absence. However, the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa justified the action stating it was well within his powers as Rule 226 clearly stated "notwithstanding anything, the Speaker could suo motu refer any privilege issue to the committee". The DMK deputy leader, Durai Murugan, said while the party was not against referring the issue to the committee, he wanted the Speaker to give Mr. Veerasami an opportunity to explain his stand. The Congress Legislature Party leader, S.R. Balasubramaniam, who came in support of Mr. Durai Murugan, quoted the Assembly rules and said the House should give an opportunity to the member before referring the matter to the committee. G.K. Mani (PMK) also felt that that it was not proper to raise a privilege issue against a member in his absence. But the Speaker was firm in his ruling, with the Chief Minister assuring the House that action would be taken as per the Assembly rules. It all started when L. Santhanam (AIFB) appealed to the Chief Minister to restore free power supply to farmers. Immediately she lashed out at the previous DMK regime "which agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for undertaking power reforms". This being the fact, Mr. Veerasami, she alleged, deliberately misled the House on March 28, stating the previous Government did not agree to any proposal suggested by the Centre. In support of her charge, the Chief Minister read out the correspondence between the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and the Centre during the previous regime. She said the Centre, in its letter to the TNEB in April 2001, warned the State Government that unless it signed the MoU, it would be forced to withdraw funds allotted to Tamil Nadu under the Accelerated Power Development Programme. The then Energy Secretary and the TNEB Chairman, while pleading that it would not be possible for the State to sign the MoU in view of the general elections, they requested the Centre to release the fund as the State was ready to sign the MoU. Subsequently the Centre released the fund on condition that the next Government sign the MoU. After receiving the funds, an order was issued by the previous Government allotting funds for various power projects. The correspondence between the State and Centre, she said, had `exposed' the former Minister's claim that the previous Government did not give any undertaking on power reforms, including withdrawal of free power to farmers. As he "misled the House", she wanted C. Ponnaiyan, leader of the House, to initiate the privilege move. As per her request, Mr. Ponnaiyan moved the resolution. The Speaker said that as the Chief Minister produced evidence that Mr. Veerasami had given false information, he was referring the matter to the committee.
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