CHENNAI: Holding that the courts cannot legislate on a regulatory mechanism to prevent an MLA from resigning soon after being elected and then facing the bye-election necessitated by the resignation, the Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking to stay the October 6 bypolls to Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly segments.
The order was passed by the first division bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan. Two AIADMK MLAs — Maragatham Kumaravel and P Sathyabama — who defected to the TVK soon after the 2026 assembly elections, are seeking a mandate again from their respective SC-reserved seats.
The PIL — filed by K Suthan, an advocate of Saidapet in Chennai — had prayed for the court to issue directions to the Election Commission of India to bring in a mechanism to ensure that if a newly elected MLA resigned, they must bear the cost of the subsequent bypoll and be barred from contesting elections for five years.
The bench said, “The prayer cannot be granted as this court cannot convert an executive or legislative option into a judicial command.”
Stating that the court is asked “to design a punitive and financial regime” that would operate as “a fresh disqualification” to curtail the statutory right to contest an election, the bench said, “In our considered opinion, the same is a matter of legislative policy, not of judicial direction.”
Moreover, it said the prayer does not “find any anchor in the Constitution of India or in the Representation of the People Act, 1951”.
Saying that the relief sought is directed against the six MLAs who had resigned from their posts, the bench said even though a mechanism is desirable as a matter of policy, a court-ordered scheme confined to these six persons would run against Article 14 of the Constitution.
It added that the right to resign from a legislative seat is itself a facet of the constitutional scheme and cannot be burdened with extra-statutory conditions by judicial order, however sound the underlying concern maybe.
