Assembly Speaker decision upheld

Once a Speaker of a Legislative Assembly accepts the resignation of the MLAs, courts will not go into the circumstances or what political strategy that required the MLAs to tender resignation.

Making this observation, a bench of Justices Anil R. Dave and A. K. Goel upheld a Gauhati high court judgment dismissing the plea of two Congress MLAs, who challenged the Arunachal Pradesh Speaker’s decision to accept their resignation, which they claimed was given under duress.

Senior counsel L. Nageswara Rao, appearing for the two MLAs, Wanglam Sawin and Gabriel Denwang Wangsu, argued that the resignation was obtained under duress on September 16, 2015 along with the resignation of 15 other MLAs but the Speaker chose to accept only their resignation, which they came to know only when the notification was issued to this effect on October 1. The counsel said it was the duty of the Speaker to make an enquiry whether such a resignation was made particularly when the MLAs had not submitted them directly to the Speaker. He said when the MLAs say that they had not resigned on their free will, the benefit of doubt should go to them and not to the Speaker. The bench asked the counsel: “Can we entertain a doubt about the Speaker’s decision and go beyond it. The Constitution has given power to the Speaker to accept resignations of legislators.”