The Madras High Court on Tuesday upheld the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker’s decision to accept the resignations of six MLAs who switched allegiance to the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party soon after they were elected on an AIADMK ticket [Agri Krishnamurthy v. Speaker].

A Bench of Chief Justice SA Dharmadhikari and Justice Arul Murugan, however, also held that acceptance of the resignations did not render disqualification proceedings pending against the MLAs academic or infructuous.

The Speaker must still adjudicate those proceedings, and his determination would carry the consequences prescribed under the Tenth Schedule (concerning political defection) of the Constitution, the Court said.

The Court, therefore, directed the Speaker to decide the pending disqualification proceedings against the former AIADMK MLAs within two months.

The Court passed the verdict on a plea filed by AIADMK leader and party Whip Agri Krishnamurthy. He challenged the decision of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker to accept the resignation of six AIADMK MLAs, S Jayakumar, Maragatham Kumaravel, P Sathyabama, Esakki Subbaya, C Vijaya Bhaskar and MR Vijayabhaskar.

The six MLAs resigned after defying the AIADMK Whip and voting in favour of the Chief Minister Joseph Vijay-led TVK government during a confidence motion. The MLAs were inducted into TVK soon after the vote, and their resignations were accepted by the Speaker the same day.

In his plea, Krishnamurthy argued that the Speaker could not have accepted their resignations when disqualification proceedings against them were pending. The plea argued that the Speaker ought to have conducted a meaningful inquiry before accepting the resignations, particularly since allegations of horse-trading and inducement had already been raised.

Krishnamurthy also challenged gazette notifications declaring the Assembly seats from where the resigned MLAs contested vacant. The plea stated that under Article 190 of the Constitution, an MLA’s resignation does not automatically result in a vacancy. The Speaker must first satisfy himself that the resignation is voluntary and genuine, the Court was told.

The Court today dismissed his plea. It held that resignation and disqualification are distinct constitutional processes, and the pendency of disqualification proceedings did not prevent the Speaker from accepting the resignations.

The Speaker was represented by Advocate General Vijay Narayan

The six MLAs were represented by Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy with advocates KP Ananthakrishnan, Dixita Gohil, Pranjal Agarwal, Yash S Vijay, T Mahendhran ,Pranav Gopalakrishnan