A two-judge bench in Himachal Pradesh high court on Wednesday delivered a split verdict in the case of the three independent legislators who had sought directions from the court for assembly speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania to accept their resignation.

A division bench comprising chief justice M Ramachandran Rao and justice Jyotsana Rewal Dua delivered the verdict on the petition challenging the speaker’s Constitutional authority to delay accepting the resignations.

“Considering the high respect to be given the office of speaker, and the fact that he is the designated authority to decide on resignations of MLAs under Art.190(3) (b) of the Constitution, and in the absence of any exceptional circumstances… I decline to grant the reliefs sought by petitioners as it would then amount to ourselves exercising in the first instance the adjudicatory powers conferred on the speaker… which is impermissible in law,” the judgement delivered by the chief justice.

“In my opinion, no direction can be issued to the speaker to decide on the resignation letters within a fixed time frame. No such request was made by the counsel for the petitioners at all. It is therefore unnecessary to go into the said aspect,” the court said in the verdict.

The court did not express an opinion on the voluntariness or genuineness of the resignations submitted by petitioners to the speaker.

However, justice Jyotsana Rewal Dua directed the speaker to decide on the petition within two weeks from the date of the judgement.

Briefing the media persons about the case, advocate general Anup Rattan said it will be referred to the third bench.

“The three independent legislators had applied that their resignation may be accepted and that resignation should be accepted by the court itself, however, this plea has been rejected by the court,” he said, adding, “The court had a dissenting view on the petition regarding whether the court can issue directions to the speaker for delivering his decision.”

The matter will now be listed before the chief justice and he will further list the case to the third bench.

On March 22, 2024, independent MLAs Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, KL Thakur from Nalagarh, and Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur submitted their resignations to speaker Vidhan Sabha Kuldeep Singh Pathania and they later met governor Shiv Pratap Shukla to inform him about their resignation.

Day after they tendered their resignation, the three joined the Bharatiya Janata Party with six Congress rebels who had cross-voted for BJP’s candidate in the tumultuous February Rajya Sabha elections that gave way to the political crisis in the state.

Pathania had issued show-cause notices to the three independent MLAs and asked them to appear in person to ascertain whether they had resigned voluntarily or under duress, but the three instead moved the HC in the matter.