Two judgments and the principle of accountability

Source: The post is based on the article “Two judgments and the principle of accountability” published in The Hindu on 18th May 2023.

Syllabus: GS – 2: issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure.

Relevance: About SC judgments on Maharashtra and Delhi.

News: Recently, two Constitution Benches of the Supreme Court of India delivered important judgments. One is the Shiv Sena case and the other is regarding the administrative services in Delhi.

What are the SC judgments on these cases?

How did the two judgments are in contradiction to the core principle of each other?

According to M.R. Madhavan, the Maharashtra judgment contradicts the core principle applied in the Delhi case. He explains this using a) triple chain of command, b) daily assessment by the legislature.

Triple chain of command:

SC’s Delhi judgment adheres to the principle of triple chain of command: The issue in the Delhi case the court held that the civil services in the Delhi government would be accountable to the Delhi cabinet and not to the Union government. This entails a triple chain of command: civil service officers are accountable to Ministers; Ministers are accountable to the legislature; and the legislature is accountable to the electorate. According to the court judgment, severance of any link of this triple chain would be antithetical to parliamentary democracy.

SC’s Maharashtra judgment is against the triple chain of command: In the Maharashtra case, the SC ruled that the Tenth Schedule makes a differentiation between the legislature party and the political party. It determined that the power to issue directions was with the political party, and not the legislature party.

Therefore, the person in charge of the political party (who may not be a member of the legislature) would control every vote of the MLAs/MPs of that party. This reinforces the idea that the MP/MLA is not accountable to the electorate but only to the party. In doing so, it breaks the triple chain of accountability.

Daily assessment by the legislature:

In the Delhi judgment, the Court states that the government is assessed daily in the legislature through debates on Bills, questions raised during Question Hour, resolutions, debates and no-confidence motions.

But, in the Maharashtra judgment, the court states that the legislators of the party with a majority in the House have to abide by the directions of the political party. The party leadership controls the vote of its legislators on each issue. This makes the very idea of a daily assessment by the legislature meaningless.

How anti-defection law led to this contradiction?

According to the author, the problem lies in the anti-defection law. He says that the law contradicts the democratic principle of accountability of legislators to their voters. The anti-defection law is based on the assumption that any vote by an MP/MLA against the party direction is a betrayal of the electoral mandate. This, according to the author, is an incorrect interpretation of representative democracy.

The constitutional design of a parliamentary democracy envisages a chain of accountability. The accountability of the government to the legislature is on a daily basis, and legislators have to justify their actions to their voters in every election. But, the anti-defection law turn over this design by breaking both links of the chain.

What should be done to avoid this contradiction?

The court needs to relook at the 1992 Supreme Court judgment which upheld the anti-defection law.