{"id":5870,"date":"2020-01-24T15:19:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T09:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5870"},"modified":"2020-01-24T15:19:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T09:49:28","slug":"role-of-speaker-on-anti-defection-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/role-of-speaker-on-anti-defection-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Role of speaker on anti-defection law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity: Constitution and constitutional posts<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Anti-de-law.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5873\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Anti-de-law.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"589\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Anti-de-law.png 589w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Anti-de-law-150x72.png 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Anti-de-law-300x144.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 589px) 100vw, 589px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are two significant aspects to the Supreme Court\u2019s latest decision on the Speaker as the adjudicating authority under the anti-defection law.<br \/>\n\u2022 The first is that Parliament should replace the Speaker with a \u201cpermanent tribunal\u201d or external mechanism to render quick and impartial decisions on questions of defection.<br \/>\n\u2022 Few would disagree with the Court\u2019s view that initial fears and doubts about whether Speakers would be impartial had come true.<br \/>\n\u2022 The second is its extraordinary ruling that the reference by another Bench, in 2016, of a key question to a Constitution Bench was itself unnecessary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Disqualification in fixed time frame:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The question awaiting determination by a larger Bench is whether courts have the power to direct Speakers to decide petitions seeking disqualification within a fixed time frame.<br \/>\n\u2022 The question had arisen because several presiding officers have allowed defectors to bolster the strength of ruling parties and even be sworn in Ministers by merely refraining from adjudicating on complaints against them.<br \/>\n\u2022 Some States have seen en masse defections soon after elections.<br \/>\n\u2022 Secure in the belief that no court would question the delay in disposal of disqualification matters as long as the matter was pending before a Constitution Bench, Speakers have been wilfully failing to act as per law, thereby helping the ruling party, which invariably is the one that helped them get to the Chair.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Antidef-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5874\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Antidef-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"614\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Antidef-1.jpg 614w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Antidef-1-150x105.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Antidef-1-300x209.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Case study:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The reference to a larger Bench, in 2016 in S.A. Sampath Kumar vs. Kale Yadaiah was based on the landmark judgment in Kihoto Hollohan (1992) which upheld the validity of the Constitution\u2019s Tenth Schedule, or the anti-defection law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Significance of this verdict:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This verdict had also made the Speaker\u2019s order subject to judicial review on limited grounds.<br \/>\n\u2022 It made it clear that the court\u2019s jurisdiction would not come into play unless the Speaker passes an order, leaving no room for intervention prior to adjudication.<br \/>\n\u2022 Finding several pending complaints before Speakers, the Bench, in 2016, decided that it was time for an authoritative verdict on whether Speakers can be directed to dispose of defection questions within a time frame.<br \/>\n\u2022 While fixing an outer limit of three months for Speakers to act on disqualification petitions, in the present case, Justice R.F. Nariman given four weeks to the Manipur Assembly Speaker to decide the disqualification question in a legislator\u2019s case. He also held that the reference was made on a wrong premise.<br \/>\n\u2022 He has cited another Constitution Bench judgment (Rajendra Singh Rana, 2007), in which the Uttar Pradesh Speaker\u2019s order refusing to disqualify 13 BSP defectors was set aside on the ground that he had failed to exercise his jurisdiction to decide whether they had attracted disqualification, while recognising a \u2018split\u2019 in the legislature party.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As \u201cfailure to exercise jurisdiction\u201d is a recognised stage at which the court can now intervene, the court has thus opened a window for judicial intervention in cases in which Speakers refuse to act.<br \/>\n\u2022 This augurs well for the enforcement of the law against defection in letter and spirit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity: Constitution and constitutional posts Context: There are two significant aspects to the Supreme Court\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5875,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5870\/revisions\/5875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}