Governor has no power to dismiss minister: CM Stalin

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday said in a letter to Governor RN Ravi that his order to dismiss Minister V Senthil Balaji from the state cabinet was unconstitutional and hence not valid.

The Governor had dismissed Senthil Balaji, who is in judicial custody after his arrest by the ED in an old cash job scam, from the council of ministers on Thursday evening, leading to a sharp attack from DMK, stating that he had no such power to issue an order in this regard.

The decision of dismissal had been kept in abeyance by the Governor but the political drama continued in the state.

“Governor has no power to dismiss a minister. We will wage a legal battle against the move,” Stalin had said.

In the letter to the Governor, Stalin accused him of acting in haste and showing scant regard for the Constitution.

Stalin wrote,“Though your letters require only an outright disregard, I am writing to you to clarify both the facts and law on the issue at hand. The fact that within a few hours after you issued such a strongly worded first letter, even alluding to breakdown of constitutional machinery, a not so veiled threat, you withdrew it to seek the opinion of the Attorney General. This shows that you had not even taken a legal opinion before such an important decision”.

Stalin further stated that the constitutional bench of the apex court had left it to the wisdom of the Prime Minister and Chief Minister to decide whether a person should continue as their cabinet minister.

Therefore, merely because an investigation agency has commenced an investigation against a person, he or she does not become legally incapacitated to continue as a minister, he noted.

With inputs from IANS