{"id":193257,"date":"2022-06-30T20:32:55","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T15:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=193257"},"modified":"2022-06-30T20:32:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T15:02:55","slug":"the-anti-defection-law-political-facts-legal-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-anti-defection-law-political-facts-legal-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"The anti-defection law \u2014 political facts, legal fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News<\/strong>:\u00a0Recently, The Supreme Court granted time to dissident legislators in the Maharashtra Assembly to reply to the Deputy Speaker\u2019s notice under the anti-defection law. The political crisis in Maharashtra, and many others before it, remind what the Tenth Schedule can and cannot do.<\/p>\n

What is anti-defection law?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Read here: \u201cNominated members\u201d and \u201cAnti-defection Law\u201d in India<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule creates an exception for mergers between political parties by introducing three crucial concepts \u2014 that of the \u201coriginal political party<\/strong>\u201d, the \u201clegislature party<\/strong>\u201d, and \u201cdeemed merger<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n

A \u201clegislature party<\/strong>\u201d means the group consisting of all elected members of a House for the time being belonging to one political party.<\/p>\n

An \u201coriginal political party<\/strong>\u201d means the political party to which a member belongs (this can refer to the party generally, outside of the House).<\/p>\n

A party shall be \u201cdeemed<\/strong>\u201d to have merged with another party if, and only if, not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned have agreed to such merger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Must read: Explained: Speaker\u2019s powers in a rebellion<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
What are the challenges associated with Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule?<\/h5>\n

Firstly<\/strong>, Paragraph 4 does not clarify<\/strong> whether the original political party refers to the party at the national level or the regional level.<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: The Election Commission of India recognises political parties based on the national and regional levels.<\/p>\n

Secondly<\/strong>, In most cases, there is no factual merger of original political parties at the national (or even regional) level. A legislature party can be deemed to be a merger of political parties, even if there is no actual merger of the original political party with another party.<\/p>\n

Hence, the deemed merger seems to be creating a \u201clegal fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirdly<\/strong>, Defection gets easier in smaller legislative assemblies, where even a sole member can account for two-thirds of the legislature party\u2019s strength to cross the floor without attracting disqualification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more:\u00a0<\/strong>The success of anti-defection law in India and its relevance in multiparty parliamentary system<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
What should be done?<\/h5>\n

Deletion of Paragraph 4 from the Tenth Schedule<\/strong>: Both the Law Commission in 1999 and the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution ((NCRWC) in 2002 made this recommendation.<\/p>\n

An academic revisiting of the Tenth Schedule by the Supreme Court<\/strong>, to guide future use of the anti-defection law should happen sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more:\u00a0Ruchi Gupta writes: The crisis in Maharashtra shows the anti-defection law to be ineffective, even counterproductive<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cThe anti-defection law \u2014 political facts, legal fiction\u201d <\/strong>published in\u00a0\u201cThe Hindu\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a030th<\/sup>\u00a0June 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News:\u00a0Recently, The Supreme Court granted time to dissident legislators in the Maharashtra Assembly to reply to the Deputy Speaker\u2019s notice under the anti-defection law. The political crisis in Maharashtra, and many others before it, remind what the Tenth Schedule can and cannot do. What is anti-defection law? Read here: \u201cNominated members\u201d and \u201cAnti-defection Law\u201d in… Continue reading The anti-defection law \u2014 political facts, legal fiction<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-193257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704909014},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}