HC dismisses writ petitions of ex-BJP MLAs
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, July 13 2021:
A division bench of the High Court of Manipur has dismissed three writ petitions by three former BJP MLAs challenging the bulletins issued by Secretary Manipur Legislative Assembly on June 18 last year accepting their resignations from the Manipur Legislative Assembly.
The judgment was passed by a division bench of the High Court of Manipur comprising Justice Lanusungkum Jamir and Justice A Bimol today after it was kept reserved after the final hearing on December 18 last year.
The writ petitions were filed by former BJP MLAs, T Thangzalam Haokip of Henglep Assembly Constituency (AC), S Subaschandra of Naoriya Pakhanglakpa AC and Samuel Jendai of Tamenglong AC challenging the bulletin published on June 18 which accepted the resignation letter tendered by them and also notifying the vacancy of the three ACs.
The MLAs through the petitions prayed for giving direction to the Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assembly to consider/revoke the acceptance of resignation tendered by them.
The petitions stated that they were elected from their respective ACs on BJP tickets in the 11th General Assembly Election 2017 and sworn in on March 19 as MLAs but they tendered their resignation after feeling they were being sidelined by the BJP led Government by giving more importance to members of other parties and due to discontentment among party members of the respective ACs.
They also stated that they were pressured to resign from BJP by some influential party workers in their ACs during the political turmoil ahead of the Rajya Sabha election held on June 19 last year.
Under threat and pressure from some influential party workers, they were compelled to resign from being MLAs and as such they wrote the resignation letters to the Speaker Manipur Legislative Assembly and delivered the same through a third party on June 17, 2020.They further submitted that a press conference was held regarding their resignation during which they announced that they have on their volition resigned from being MLAs.
They however stated that the Speaker promptly accepted their resignations without holding any enquiry as contemplated under 315(3) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct Rules and published acceptance of the resignation in the Manipur Gazette which has aggrieved them.
As all three writ petitions were common, they were jointly heard and disposed of by a common judgment.
The Court observed that if the resignation was genuine and voluntary, there was nothing wrong in accepting such resignation by the Speaker promptly as no time limit is given under the Constitution or under the "Procedure and conduct rules" for accepting the resignation tendered by Members of Legislative Assembly of a State and there is no merit in the allegation made by the petitioners that their resignations have been accepted by the Speaker in a hot-haste manner and the action of Speaker amount to mala-fide exercise of power.
The Court also observed that it did not agree with the submission advanced on behalf of the petitioners that no specific order of acceptance was passed or issued by the Speaker and communicated the same to the petitioners.
The counsels of the petitioners did not point out any provisions either under the Constitution or under the "Procedure and Conduct Rules" mandating the requirement of issuing separate order of acceptance and communicating the same, the Court observed.
The Court further observed that in the cases, as soon as the Speaker accepted the resignations, the Secretary of Manipur Legislative Assembly notified such acceptance by issuing a bulletin on June 18, 2020 and it was notified in the public domain by publishing in the official Gazette.
The Court noted that it did not find any ground or reason for interfering with the bulletins and dismissed the writ petitions under Article 226 of Constitution.
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