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Anti-Defection Law was added in Indian constitution as a Tenth Schedule through 52nd Amendment in 1985. Defection is defined as “to abandon a position or association, often to join an opposing group” which essentially describes a situation when a member of a particular party abandons his loyalty towards that party and provide his support (in the form of his vote or otherwise) to another party. Conditions of Disqualification If a member of a house belonging to a political party: a) Voluntarily gives up the membership of his political party, or Votes, or does not vote in the legislature, contrary to the directions of his political party. b) However, if the member has taken prior permission, or is condoned by the party within 15 days from such voting or abstention, the member shall not be disqualified. c) If an independent candidate joins a political party after the election. d) If a nominated member joins a party six months after he becomes a member of the legislature.
On the electoral reforms, the Dinesh Goswami Committee in its report on “Reform of Electoral Laws” had suggested the deletion of the Tenth Schedule provision regarding exemption from disqualification in case of a split in a political party.Before 91st amendment, members going out from a party through split were not considered as disqualified provided that they are more than 1/3rd of total members of the party. 91st Constitutional modification Act, 2003 provided that at least two-thirds of the members of a party have to be in favour of a merger for it to possess validity in the eyes of the law. With this amendment , split within party to form another party was removed. So, now members cannot take shelter under split. However, A split in a political party won’t be considered a defection if a complete political party merges with another political party; if a new political party is created by the elected members of one party; if he or she or alternative members of the party haven’t accepted the merger between the two parties and opted to perform as a separate group from the time of such a merger. On defection of elected members, the concerned party can send a petition on the alleged defection to the Chairman or the Speaker of a House recommending their disqualification. It may also expel the members. However this doesn’t mean that the members thus expelled lose their seats in the House. Under the anti-defection law, even an expelled legislator is required to follow the whip issued by the party on whose ticket he was elected to the House and vote for his/her original party during a floor test.
The Rajiv Gandhi government was spurred to introduce this law as several defections were witnessed in the eighties. The Amendment was supposed to bring stability to the structure of political parties and strengthen parliamentary democracy by prohibiting floor-crossing. The earlier failures to deal with this issue had caused rampant horse-trading and corruption. The Schedule X was, therefore, seen as a tool to cure this malaise. This constitutional measure meant that after a member was elected under the symbol of a political party to Parliament, the member couldn’t later opt to leave that party or switch to a different party.
It has altered the fundamental character of parliamentary democracy where legislators, rather than articulating the predilections and priorities of the territorial constituency that they represent, have become but virtual hostages of a whip-driven tyranny. In the current system voters have a choice with an individual elector but legislative power resides in a political party. Viewed from this perspective, the Tenth Schedule has violated the fundamental tenets of the Constitution . Party whip enforces adherence to the party line, which means that a member invariably ends up voting for a bill if he/she is on the Treasury benches and against a bill if he/she is in the Opposition. We have seen odd spectacle of parliamentarians sometimes voting against a legislative instrument which they had supported previously, depending on whether their party occupies the Opposition or Treasury benches.
Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990) recommended that this law be restricted to confidence and no-confidence motions only. The Law Commission, in its 170th report (1999), recommended that political parties should issue whips only when the government’s continuance was being tested Restriction on whip would free up the legislative space and ensure that every government strives not only for cross-party consensus on legislation but reaches out to individual lawmakers rather than just their leaderships, deepening participatory lawmaking in the process.
By: Vishal ProfileResourcesReport error
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