After SC order, Tamil Nadu Guv to administer ministerial oath to Ponmudi

Attorney General R Venkataramani informed Supreme Court on Friday that Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi has agreed to extend an invitation to DMK leader K Ponmudi to be sworn in as a minister. He added that the governor has no intention of disregarding the court.

Venkataramani conveyed to a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that the governor has scheduled Ponmudi’s oath-taking ceremony for 3:30 pm.

“The governor asserts that he has no intention whatsoever to defy the court,” the AG stated.

On Thursday, the Apex Court expressed “serious concern” regarding Governor Ravi’s refusal to reinstate Ponmudi as a minister in the state cabinet, even after the court had suspended his conviction in a corruption case.

The court had instructed the governor to take action within 24 hours. Despite Chief Minister M K Stalin’s endorsement, the governor had previously declined to reinstate Ponmudi, whose conviction and three-year sentence in a disproportionate assets case had been suspended by the apex court recently. Noting that Ravi was disregarding the top court’s directive, a three-judge bench questioned how the governor could assert that Ponmudi’s reinstatement would be against constitutional morality.

The Supreme Court was hearing a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government, seeking an order for the governor to accept the chief minister’s recommendation to reinstate Ponmudi as a minister.