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Text: Petitioners’ sole contention is that the District Judge had no authority to dismiss the case rather than initiate the procedures to convene a three-judge court. Not so, argue respondents; the 1976 addition to §2284(b)(1) of the clause “unless he determines that three judges are not required” is precisely such a grant of authority. Moreover, say respondents, Congress declined to specify a standard to constrain the exercise of this authority. Choosing, as the District Judge did, the familiar standard for dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) best serves the purposes of a three-judge court, which (in respondents’ view) is to protect States from “hasty, imprudent invalidation” of their statutes by rogue district judges acting alone. Brief for Respondents 27.

Whatever the purposes of a three-judge court may be, respondents’ argument needlessly produces a contradiction in the statutory text. That text’s initial prescription could not be clearer: “A district court of three judges shall be convened . . . when an action is filed challenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts . . . .” 28 U. S. C. §2284(a) (emphasis added). Nobody disputes that the present suit is “an action . . . challenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts.” It follows that the district judge was required to refer the case to a three-judge court, for §2284(a) admits of no exception, and “the mandatory ‘shall’ . . . normally creates an obligation impervious to judicial discretion.” Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U. S. 26, 35 (1998); see also National Assn. of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U. S. 644, 661–662 (2007) (same).

The subsequent provision of §2284(b)(1), that the district judge shall commence the process for appointment of a three-judge panel “unless he determines that three judges are not required,” need not and therefore should not be read as a grant of discretion to the district judge to ignore §2284(a). It is not even framed as a proviso, or an exception from that provision, but rather as an administrative detail that is entirely compatible with §2284(a). The old §2284(1) triggered the district judge’s duty to refer the matter for the convening of a three-judge court “[o]n the filing of the application” to enjoin an unconstitutional state law. By contrast, the current §2284(b)(1) triggers the district judge’s duty “[u]pon the filing of a request for three judges” (emphasis added). But of course a party may—whether in good faith or bad, through ignorance or hope or malice—file a request for a three-judge court even if the case does not merit one under §2284(a). Section 2284(b)(1) merely clarifies that a district judge need not unthinkingly initiate the procedures to convene a threejudge court without first examining the allegations in the complaint. In short, all the district judge must “determin[e]” is whether the “request for three judges” is made in a case covered by §2284(a)—no more, no less.

That conclusion is bolstered by §2284(b)(3)’s explicit command that “[a] single judge shall not . . . enter judgment on the merits.” It would be an odd interpretation that allowed a district judge to do under §2284(b)(1) what he is forbidden to do under §2284(b)(3). More likely that Congress intended a three-judge court, and not a single district judge, to enter all final judgments in cases satisfying the criteria of §2284(a).