Madras high court upholds resignation of 6 AIADMK MLAs who joined Vijay's TVK

The petition alleged that the resignations were accepted without a proper inquiry while disqualification proceedings against the legislators were pending.

The Madras High Court on Tuesday, upheld Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker JCD Prabhakar’s decision to accept the resignations of six AIADMK MLAs, holding that the acceptance was "constitutionally valid" even though disqualification proceedings against them were pending under the anti-defection law.

The six MLAs - Maragatham Kumaravel, Sathyabama, Isakki Subbaiah, Jayakumar, MR Vijayabhaskar and C Vijayabhaskar - resigned earlier this year and shifted their allegiance with chief minister Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). (Wikimedia Commons)

The legal dispute arose after the six AIADMK MLAs resigned from the Assembly to switch over to the ruling TVK, expanding the ruling party's legislative strength amid Opposition outcry over deliberate sidestepping of disqualification proceedings.

A Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan, however, partly allowed a batch of writ petitions filed by AIADMK whip Agri SS Krishnamurthy challenging the Speaker’s decision, and said the Speaker could "continue the disqualification proceedings and conclude them within two months."

The High Court said the present case involved an “unforeseeable dilemma,” amd a "conflict between constitutional morality and political morality."

It went on to say that after examining the precedents cited by both sides, it had chosen to "uphold constitutional morality over the considerations and compulsions of political morality."

"The Court after deep introspection and scrutiny of a large number of precedents quoted by both sides, has chosen to adopt the constitutional morality in the present matter overruling the considerations and compulsions of political morality," the High Court said.

The bench said it had consciously chosen to trust the constitutional institutions entrusted with deciding complex political questions, leaving the issue of disqualification to the Speaker.

“Being conscious that, for upholding the Constitution we always need men and women who make a good Constitution of ours a better version, we, in the present judgment, have chosen to trust the high institutions, which the Constitution has invested the powers of deciding complex political questions,” HC said.

It added that it had decided, after deliberations, to leave the question of disqualification to the Speaker, trusting that he would discharge his constitutional responsibilities.

“We have consciously, after lot of deliberations and profound thinking, opted to leave the issue of disqualification of various respondents/Members of Legislative Assembly of the Tamil Nadu State legislature (for short, ‘MLAs’) to the Speaker trusting that he will discharge his role as a sentinel of the constitutional morality so designated under the X Schedule of the Indian Constitution by our Parliament,” it said.

The bench also held that the Speaker was not required to conduct a roving inquiry into the resignations before accepting them.

The Court passed its judgment on the plea filed by Krishnamurthy after the AIADMK sought the disqualification of 25 of its MLAs for allegedly defying the party whip during the confidence motion moved by the TVK government on May 13. The party had directed its legislators to vote against the motion, but 25 MLAs allegedly voted in favour of the government.

While the disqualification request remained pending, the Speaker accepted the resignations of six AIADMK legislators between May 26 and June 29, 2026. The party’s whip challenged the decisions, arguing that the resignations could not be considered independently of the pending disqualification proceedings.

In an affidavit filed before the High Court in August this year, Prabhakar defended his decision to accept the resignations of three of the legislators — S Jayakumar, Maragatham Kumaravel and P Sathyabhama. He said he had personally questioned them after they submitted handwritten and signed resignation letters on May 25.

The Speaker said he had “inquired with each of the MLAs to check if the resignation was voluntary or not”.

“There was no information contrary to the effect that their resignation was not voluntary,” he said, adding that, based on his interactions with the legislators, “it appeared that the said respondents were stating the truth” and were not acting under pressure from anyone.

“In these circumstances, there was no further inquiry necessary in my view,” he said.

Prabhakar maintained that he had acted in accordance with the proviso to Article 190(3)(b) of the Constitution and Rule 22 of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Rules, which govern the resignation of legislators.

The High Court has now upheld the constitutional validity of the Speaker’s acceptance of the resignations while allowing the disqualification proceedings to continue, directing that they be concluded within two months.