Madras High Court imposes ₹1 lakh cost on lawyer who sought to recover bypoll expenses from resigned MLAs
The Madras High Court has fined a lawyer ₹1 lakh for filing a public interest litigation that sought to hold resigned MLAs financially responsible for byelection costs. The court ruled that such restrictions on political resignations are a matter for Parliament, not the judiciary.
Why it matters
It clarifies the limits of judicial intervention in political processes and the legal status of legislative resignations in India.
The Madras High Court on Tuesday (September 29, 2026) imposed costs of ₹1 lakh on an advocate for filing a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking a direction to six resigned MLAs in Tamil Nadu to bear the byelection expenditure and also to restrain them from contesting any election during the subsistence of the present term of the Legislative Assembly.
The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan dismissed the PIL petition filed by Chennai-based lawyer S. Kasi Ramalingam with costs, after observing that the case appeared to have been filed for publicity. The judges said that just last week, they had dismissed on merits a similar case filed by advocate K. Suthan, also from Chennai .
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