india

Updated: Mar 27, 2020 11:50 IST

Manipur minister Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh resigned as a legislator on Thursday, eight days after the Supreme Court restrained him from entering the state assembly.

“I have the honour to say that I am willing to resign from the membership of 11 Manipur legislative assembly in respect of 7-Andro assembly constituency with immediate effect ie today the 26th of March, 2020,” Singh wrote in a letter to the assembly Speaker Y Khemchand Singh.

A division bench of the top court headed by Justice Rohinton Nariman had on March 18 restrained Shyamkumar from entering the assembly and had also stripped him from remaining a minister.

The order came after the assembly Speaker Singh failed to decide on the disqualification petition on grounds of defection pending against Shyamkumar within the four-week period stipulated by the Supreme Court.

Shyamkumar, who won as a Congress candidate from Andro in the 2017 assembly election, immediately switched sides to join Manipur’s first Bharatiya Janata Party-led government headed by N Biren Singh.

He was the minister for housing and urban development, town planning, forest and environment, horticulture and soil conservation.

Incidentally, Shyamkumar’s resignation came two days prior to the verdict on his disqualification case pending before the Manipur assembly Speaker’s tribunal.

“I submitted the resignation to the Speaker at 2:20pm on Thursday. I have not been intimated whether he has accepted the resignation. I have informed the chief minister about my decision and with his advice, I tendered the resignation,” Shyamkumar said while speaking over the phone.