Advocate General Vijay Narayan on Wednesday (September 9, 2026) played three video clips of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly proceedings before the Madras High Court to prove that it was only an amended resolution against the proposed Mekedatu dam, across Rivery Cauvery, that was put to vote and passed unanimously by the House.
Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan watched the video clips of a request made by the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Udhayanidhi Stalin to carry out an amendment, Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay’s decision to accept the request and then the Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar’s act of having put the amended resolution to vote on July 19, 2026.
Highlighting that the Speaker had clearly mentioned in the House that he was putting the amended resolution to vote, the A-G said, all the Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) had welcomed the amended resolution by thumping of desks and none of them, including the AIADMK members, raised any objection which led to the Speaker declaring it to have been passed unanimously.
After arguing the matter on facts, Mr. Narayan urged the court to examine whether a writ petition filed by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) whip Agri S.S. Krishnamurthy, challenging the amendment carried out to the resolution, was maintainable at all. He said, there was an express bar imposed on the courts under Article 212 of the Constitution from inquiring into validity of any proceedings of a State legislature on the ground of an alleged irregularity of procedure.
The A-G also relied upon a catena of decisions of the Supreme Court, including the one passed by a five-judge Bench, to contend that courts could not inquire into proceedings of the legislature on the ground of procedural irregularities.
On the other hand, senior counsel S.R. Rajagopal, representing the AIADMK whip, argued that the writ petition was very much maintainable since the amended resolution had not remained within the House but had been communicated to the Centre for consequent action.
Mr. Rajagopal contended that only a pre-amended resolution was debated by the members of the House on July 19, 2026 and only at the fag end of the proceedings, the LoP stood up to make his request to introduce an amendment urging the Centre to constitute a new tribunal for resolving the dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over the proposed construction of Mekedatu dam by the latter.
The senior counsel asserted that the amendment was not put to debate at all and urged the court to quash the amendment which insists upon constitution of a new tribunal. After hearing both sides, the judges reserved their judgement on the writ petition.
