The Speaker could accept the resignations while disqualification petitions were pending, but he now has two months to decide them

Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan upheld the acceptance of five MLAs' resignations and issued a time-bound mandamus on the Tenth Schedule proceedings.

When a legislator facing a defection petition resigns and the Speaker accepts the resignation, does the disqualification case die with the seat? The official whip of the AIADMK brought five writ petitions before the Madras High Court saying the acceptances were a device and should be quashed. On 13 October 2026 a Bench headed by the Chief Justice held the acceptances constitutionally valid — and then gave the petitioners the half of the relief that matters for the future, directing the Speaker to finally decide the pending disqualification proceedings within two months.

What was challenged

The petitions were filed under Article 226. They called for the records relating to the Speaker's acceptance of resignations, notified in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette on 25 and 26 May 2026, and the consequential communication of the Chief Electoral Officer dated 9 June 2026 declaring vacancies in the Perundurai, Madurantakam, Dharapuram and Ambasamudram assembly constituencies. A further petition challenged the acceptance of the resignation of the member for the Karur constituency, notified by extraordinary gazette on 29 June 2026, as a colourable exercise of power violating Article 190(3)(b) and the Assembly Rules.

In each case the petitioner also asked the Court to direct the Speaker to adjudicate and dispose of the disqualification petitions filed against those members under the Tenth Schedule within a time frame fixed by the Court.

The background set out in the judgment is that the members had defied the official whip on 13 May 2026 and had tendered apologies seeking condonation of that conduct, and that on 14 May 2026 a complaint was made to the Governor alleging horse-trading and political negotiations involving the defecting members.

Two offices in one person

The Court's answer turns on the fact that the Speaker was wearing two constitutional hats, and that the Constitution does not tie them together.

When accepting and processing a resignation, the Speaker acts under Article 190(3)(b) read with Rules 21 to 24 of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Rules. His task there is confined: to test whether the resignation is genuine and voluntary on the face of it. Apart from the restriction in the proviso to that Article, nothing limits his hands in deciding a resignation request. He was not required to undertake a roving or detailed inquiry into the alleged motives behind the resignations.

When deciding a disqualification petition, by contrast, the Speaker acts as a tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, as settled decades ago in Kihoto Hollohan. That is a quasi-judicial function: he must hear all parties, consider their stand and the evidence produced, and pass a reasoned and speaking order. Disqualification proceedings arise from the commission of a prohibited act under paragraph 2(1) of the Tenth Schedule, which is a different inquiry altogether.

The Court held that even accepting the petitioners' contention that the whole state of affairs was within the Speaker's knowledge, including the allegations of large-scale horse-trading, there is no constitutional inhibition restraining him from accepting the resignations or from keeping them in abeyance until the disqualification proceedings conclude. If the Speaker were expected to act overnight in haste on the disqualification side, his duties as a tribunal would be compromised. The Constitution makes no correlation between the two functions discharged by the same officer.

The seat goes; the case does not

That reasoning cuts both ways, and the second holding is where it bites. The acceptance of the resignations does not render the pending disqualification proceedings academic or infructuous. The Speaker must still finally adjudicate and decide them, and that determination will carry the consequences prescribed by the Tenth Schedule.

How long a Speaker may take

On the question of whether a court can push the Speaker at all, the Court worked through the modern line of authority. In Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly the Supreme Court explained that what paragraphs 110 and 111 of Kihoto Hollohan placed outside judicial review were quia timet actions — injunctions to stop the Speaker from deciding at all. Those paragraphs do not interdict judicial review in aid of the Speaker arriving at a prompt decision. The Speaker, acting as a tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, is bound to decide disqualification petitions within a reasonable period; what is reasonable depends on the facts, but absent exceptional circumstances for which there is good reason, three months from the date the petition is filed is the outer limit. The reasoning is that assemblies ordinarily last five years, and that persons who have infracted the Tenth Schedule do not deserve to sit even for a single day.

The Court noted that the question returned in Subhash Desai v. State of Maharashtra and again in Padi Kaushik Reddy v. State of Telangana, in the context of disqualification proceedings concerning members of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, where an objection that quia timet intervention is impermissible was taken both in the High Court and in the Supreme Court.

Applying that, the Bench held that the High Court possesses the power under Article 226 to intervene where the Speaker fails to decide disqualification proceedings within a reasonable period, and that in the peculiar circumstances of this case a time-bound mandamus was warranted.

Order

The Court held that the resignations were genuine and voluntary in terms of the Tenth Schedule, that their acceptance and the consequential declaration of vacancies are constitutionally valid, that the pendency of disqualification proceedings did not bar the Speaker from accepting them, and that their acceptance does not make those proceedings academic. A time-bound mandamus was issued directing the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly to conclude the disqualification proceedings finally within two months. Two of the writ petitions were dismissed and three were partly allowed, with no order as to costs and connected miscellaneous petitions closed.