Overview
- The seven‑judge Constitution Bench disposed of the long‑pending reference as “infructuous” on Tuesday after recording that the Tamil Nadu Assembly had withdrawn its November 7, 2003 resolution by a 2004 resolution filed in court.
- The court expressly declined to decide the core constitutional issue now and kept open for future proceedings the question of how legislative privileges under Article 194 should be reconciled with freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a).
- The hearing was unusually brief, reported to have taken less than half an hour, after counsel for the Assembly and senior law officers told the court the original cause of action no longer survived.
- The dispute began in 2003 when the Assembly ordered 15 days’ simple imprisonment for several senior editors of The Hindu for an editorial; the arrests were stayed and the matter was referred to larger benches because of conflicting precedents.
- Journalists, media bodies and public figures had sought to intervene to press the free‑speech stakes, and the unresolved ruling means future ‘live’ cases will be the vehicle for the Supreme Court to set clear limits on legislative privilege.