Madras HC Upholds TN Assembly Speaker's Decision Accepting Resignations of Six AIADMK MLAs

Public Lokpal
October 13, 2026

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan, has upheld Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar's decision to accept the resignations of six AIADMK MLAs.

The ruling came on a petition filed by AIADMK whip Agri S.S. Krishnamurthy, who challenged the acceptance as hasty and questioned its timing. The petitioners argued that the Speaker failed to conduct a proper inquiry to verify if the resignations were voluntary, noting that disqualification proceedings were already pending against the legislators for cross-voting and defying the party whip to support Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay’s TVK government.

Defending the move, the Speaker and the legislators maintained that a member cannot be forced to stay in office if they resign voluntarily, and that shifting political allegiances is a part of democratic politics.

The impacted legislators include Maragatham Kumaravel, P. Sathyabama, Isakki Subbaiah, Jayakumar, M.R. Vijayabhaskar, and C. Vijayabhaskar. Notably, two of them—Kumaravel and Sathyabama—subsequently re-contested and won their seats back as TVK candidates during the October 6 assembly bypolls.