CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu assembly speaker J C D Prabhakar on Tuesday informed the Madras high court that he is constitutionally duty bound to accept the resignation tendered by an MLA if it is done voluntarily. No one can compel a legislator to continue in his/her post, he said.Senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan and advocate-general Vijay Narayan made the submission on behalf of the speaker while opposing the pleas challenging his decision in accepting the resignation of six AIADMK MLAs before deciding the disqualification proceedings for cross voting in favour of the TVK govt violating party whip.Recording the submissions, the first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan reserved their orders. The petitions were filed by AIADMK whip Agri S S Krishnamurthy and others.Acceptance of the resignations would not automatically render the pending disqualification proceedings ineffective. If an MLA wishes to resign, he or she cannot be compelled to continue in office. Refusal to accept such resignations would amount to a failure on the part of the speaker to discharge a constitutional duty, Vaidyanathan said.“The speaker could inquire only whether the resignations were submitted voluntarily. The other aspects of whether the MLAs resigned in exchange for a ministerial position or money, or whether horse-trading had taken place, could be examined only as part of the disqualification proceedings,” he added.The purpose or motive behind a resignation could not be examined while deciding whether to accept it, he said.Representing the MLAs, senior advocates Satish Parasaran and Menaka Guruswamy contended that defection proceedings would arise only if an MLA continued to enjoy the privileges of office while extending support to another political party. Resigning from the office of MLA and subsequently joining another political party constitute democratic political activity, they said.Senior counsel V V Giri and S R Rajagopal for Krishnamurthy submitted that conducting an inquiry to ascertain whether the resignations were made voluntarily or not was not merely a procedural formality but a constitutional obligation, and that no meaningful inquiry had actually been conducted.
