Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Challenging Manipur Speaker's Decision To Accept 3 BJP MLAs' Resignation

The matter was heard by the bench of Justices UU Lalit, SR Bhat and Bela M Trivedi.

Appearing for the MLAs, Senior Advocate Nikhil Nayar submitted that the speaker accepted their resignation without holding an enquiry. Reliance was also placed on the relevant paragraphs of the Supreme Court's judgment in the Karnataka MLAs disqualification case (Shrimanth Balasaheb Patil vs Hon'ble Speaker Karnataka) dealing with the interplay between resignation and disqualification of a legislator to substantiate his arguments.

It was also his contention that such resignation was tendered by the MLA's by writing a letter to the Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assembly involuntarily under duress and pressure by influential party workers and supporters and thereafter had announced the same in a press conference.

Justice UU Lalit, the presiding judge at this juncture asked if the MLA's had filed any police complaint with regards to the pressure on the MLA's to which the Senior Counsel responded in negative.

"You are suggesting that the press conference was made up and doctored?" Justice Lalit further remarked.

Taking note of the fact that no police complaint was filed, the bench while dismissing the SLP said that, "We can't go into something that is ipse dixit."

Background

On June 17, 2020, the 3 BJP MLA's T. Thangzalam Haokip, Samuel Jendai and S. Subhaschandra Singh tendered their resignation from being a member of the Manipur Legislative Assembly by submitting letters written by their own hand to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and they made an announcement in a press conference.

The Speaker accepted the resignation tendered by the writ petitioners on the same day without holding any inquiry and thus, on Jun 18, 2020, the acceptance of the resignation tendered by the petitioners were notified by issuing 3 Bulletins and the said Bulletins were published in the Official Gazette on June 18, 2020.

Manipur High Court Order

The Manipur High Court on July 13, 2021 upheld the decision of the Manipur Legislative Assembly Speaker to accept the resignation of 3 Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs without holding an enquiry and held that the resignation tendered by the petitioners were genuine and voluntary.

The Bench of Justice Lanusungkum Jamir and Justice Ananthem Bimol Singh also observed that if the resignation is genuine and voluntary (as per the decision of the Speaker), there is nothing wrong with accepting such resignation by the Speaker promptly.

Importantly, the Court observed that though an enquiry under Rule 315(3) of the "Procedure & Conduct Rules" read with Article 190 (3) (b) of the Constitution could be made by the Speaker of a State Assembly for the purpose of ascertaining or verifying whether the resignation tendered by a member of the Legislature of a State is voluntary or genuine but the nature of the enquiry to be held is left exclusively to the discretion of the Speaker.

Case Title: T. Thangzalamhaokip v. The Speaker Manipur Legislative Assembly And Ors.

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