Madras High Court dismisses plea to prevent resigned MLAs from recontesting in the resulting bypolls

The Madras High Court on Thursday (September 24, 2026) dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition, which sought to restrain the conduct of byelections to the Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu until the disposal of the main plea to prevent the practice of MLAs resigning their post only to seek re-election from the same constituencies after joining other political parties.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan rejected the PIL plea filed by Chennai-based advocate K. Suthan. It held that the court could not issue a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to either prescribe a cooling-off period of five years before permitting the resigned MLAs to recontest in elections or insist upon them to bear the entire bypoll expenses.

“It is for Parliament to take a call on the issue,” the Chief Justice said. In his plea, the petitioner had sought the introduction of stringent rules with respect to the recontest by resigned MLAs so that public money does not get wasted because of the legislators who resign and seek re-election in the consequent bypolls just to escape the proceedings under the anti-defection law.

The petitioner had insisted that either a cooling-off period must be prescribed for the resigned MLAs to contest elections or they must be made to bear the entire expenses for the byelections. However, during the course of hearing of the case, the judges had wondered how courts could interfere in such matters when the law does not impose any bar on the resigned MLAs to contest in the consequent byelections.

ECI’s response

ECI standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan also told the court there was no statutory requirement for a resigned MLA to bear the expenses of the consequent byelection, and the role of the Commission was only to ensure the conduct of free and fair elections as and when a vacancy arises. He said that the ECI could not probe into the reasons for which a MLA had resigned.

In his affidavit, the petitioner had pointed out that as many as six individuals – C. Vijayabaskar (Viralimalai), M.R. Vijayabhaskar (Karur), Esakki Subaya (Ambasamudram), P. Sathyabama (Dharapuram), K. Maragatham Kumaravel (Madurantakam), and S. Jayakumar (Perundurai) – had won the Assembly elections this year as AIADMK candidates but subsequently resigned their MLA post before joining the ruling TVK.

The ECI had notified byelections only to two of the six constituencies, since election petitions were pending with respect to the rest of the constituencies, and the resigned MLAs Ms. Kumaravel and Ms. Sathyabama had been declared as TVK candidates for Madurantakam and Dharapuram respectively, the court was told.