Madras High Court Rejects PIL Seeking Curbs on Resigned MLAs Recontesting Bypolls

The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed a public interest litigation petition that sought to stop byelections to the Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu until a larger plea against the practice of MLAs resigning and recontesting from the same seats was decided.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan rejected the petition filed by Chennai-based advocate K. Suthan. The court held that it could not direct the Election Commission of India to either impose a five-year cooling-off period before allowing resigned legislators to contest again or require them to bear the full cost of the byelections.

"It is for Parliament to take a call on the issue," the Chief Justice observed.

The petitioner had argued that stringent rules were needed to prevent public money from being wasted when legislators resign and seek re-election in the resulting bypolls, a route he said was used to escape proceedings under the anti-defection law. He pressed for either a cooling-off period for such MLAs or a mandate that they foot the entire expense of the byelections.

During the hearings, the judges questioned how courts could intervene when the law places no bar on resigned MLAs contesting the consequent byelections.

Election Commission standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan told the court that no statutory requirement obliges a resigned MLA to bear byelection expenses. The Commission's role, he said, is limited to ensuring free and fair elections whenever a vacancy arises, and it cannot inquire into why a legislator resigned.

In his affidavit, the petitioner pointed to six individuals who won this year's Assembly elections as AIADMK candidates and later resigned before joining the ruling TVK: C. Vijayabaskar (Viralimalai), M.R. Vijayabhaskar (Karur), Esakki Subaya (Ambasamudram), P. Sathyabama (Dharapuram), K. Maragatham Kumaravel (Madurantakam) and S. Jayakumar (Perundurai).

The Election Commission has notified byelections for only two of these six constituencies, since election petitions are pending in the others. The resigned MLAs, Ms. Kumaravel and Ms. Sathyabama, have been named TVK candidates for Madurantakam and Dharapuram respectively.