ABSTRACT
The Anti-Defection Law, enacted through the 52nd Amendment Act of 1985, was brought in to curb political instability caused by opportunistic party hopping. Enshrined in the 10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, the Act provides the grounds for disqualifying members for going against party orders, voting against party orders, or resorting to unethical political strategies. Despite this law being a major instrument of ensuring political stability, it has been criticized for muzzling the freedom of speech of members and entrusting too much discretion to the Speaker/Chairman, which tends to lead to one-sided decisions and inordinate delays on disqualification.
Judicial interventions have made some of the law clearer, but problems persist, including loopholes that allow mass defection in the form of mergers and the suppression of authentic political party dissent. An examination of international parliamentary practice identifies alternative methods of maintaining party discipline while not undermining legislative autonomy. Such research takes into account possible reforms, including the establishment of a time-bound decision-making process, the delegation of adjudicative functions to an independent panel, and the redefinition of defection to balance stability with democratic principles.
This study critically assesses the effectiveness, challenges, and future of the Anti-Defamation Law, pointing to the need for systemic changes to ensure governmental stability in conjunction with legislative autonomy within India’s parliamentary democratic system.
Keywords: Anti-Defection Law, Judicial interventions, political stability, legislative autonomy.
INTRODUCTION
Elections to the parliament and state legislatures in India have traditionally been party-based, and the multi-party system influences the voters both conceptually and practically depending on their philosophy and policies stated in election manifestos. But since the mid-1960’s India’s experience with democracy, many of the representatives of the people in the parliament and in the State legislatures, especially, have defected to opposing parties, leading to quite unsavory political evolution. Such shameless defection is nothing but betrayal of the voters and destruction of the principles of democracy. This marvel, rather than any shared ideology or sincere political opposition, was apparently motivated by a thirst for power, status, and money.
The persistent problems of defection even after the implementation of detailed measures in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, as well as the numerous contradictory views from various High Courts and even the Supreme Court, now have new manifestations in terms of some of the elected representatives of the dominating political party resigning from the party and subsequently joining the Second largest political party and contesting the by election under its banner. This has led to the reduction of the required minimum number of members in the House which now enables the Second largest political party to establish a government in the same way as in Goa, Manipur, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. The recent matters in the State of Rajasthan have made more difficult the entire framework of law on defection with regard to the jurisdiction of the High Court to intervene, particularly, when the case is pending before the presiding officer of the House and more significantly, ‘the voice of dissent’ which is one of the most cardinal principles of democracy is silenced with a threat of a show cause notice seeking disqualification in 2(1) Part of Schedule 10 of the Constitution.