Has the TN governor refused to swear in a convicted minister?

New Delhi: Tamil Nadu governor R N Ravi is learned to have sent a letter to the chief minister M K Stalin that he cannot conduct the oath taking ceremony for K Ponmudy who got a reprieve from the Supreme Court through a stay on his conviction.

Sources said that Ravi in his letter contested saying that the charges against Ponmudy are pending and he has not been aquitted.

“Since he has not been given a clean chit, he cannot be sworn in as a minister, says Ravi in a letter addressed to Stalin,” Ravi wrote to Stalin.

Earlier on Thursday, Ravi visited Delhi amid speculations that the DMK government wanted the swearing-in of K Ponmudy as minister on the same day.

Reports in a section of media said the government had written to the Raj Bhavan, requesting that the swearing-in ceremony be held on Thursday, a day after Ponmudy, an ex-minister convicted in an assets case by the Madras High Court, was reinstated as MLA.

He had been Higher Education Minister from May 2021, when the DMK government came to power, till his conviction.

Following the senior DMK leader's conviction in December last by the Madras High Court in a disproportionate assets case, the Tamil Nadu Assembly Secretariat declared his Tirukoyilur constituency as 'deemed to have become vacant' from the date of his conviction.

It issued a fresh notification dated March 13 to rescind the notification of March 5.

According to the new notification, an interim order of the Supreme Court dated March 11, 2024 suspended Ponmudy's conviction and following that, the Assembly Secretariat on Wednesday revoked the earlier one that declared the former minister's constituency vacant.