Chennai, Aug 17 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker J C D Prabhakar on Monday informed the Madras High Court that the acceptance of resignation letters tendered by three former AIADMK legislators was valid and suffers from no legal/constitutional infirmities as sought to be canvassed by the opposition party’s whip Agri S S Krishnamurthy.
The inquiry which was conducted by him at the time when the resignations were tendered was in consonance with the permissible scope of inquiry envisaged under proviso to Article 190 and Rule 22 of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Rules. Therefore, he made a limited inquiry to the extent of asking each of them as to whether their decision to resign was voluntary or not, he added. Therefore, the acceptance of resignation letters was valid and suffers from no legal/constitutional infirmities as sought to be canvassed by the petitioner, he added.
In his petition, Krishnamurthy challenged the acceptance of resignation of the three MLAs S Jayakumar, Maragatham Kumaravel and P Sathyabama by the Speaker. In his affidavit, Prabhakar submitted that when the three persons had handed over their resignation letters to him, which were all handwritten by them, their conduct and demeanour did not give him any impression that they were being coerced or forced in any manner to tender their resignation. Moreover, there was no other material/circumstances that indicated to him that their resignation was not voluntary or genuine.
