SubscriberWrites: India’s anti-defection Law is being manipulated for personal gains

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The purpose of the Anti-defection Law enacted in 1985 was ostensibly to  prevent unprincipled defections and stop the culture of ‘Ayaa Ram Gaya Ram’. However, the legislation controversially provided that Speaker/Chairman of a house shall have absolute powers to decide on disqualification of a member and his/her verdict could not be challenged in a court of law. In a landmark judgement in ‘Kihito Hollohan Case (1992) the five judges  Constitutional Bench, headed by the then CJI Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah , in a 3 -2 verdict,  confirmed the constitutionality of the enactment and  allowed speakers/ chairman to decide on disqualifications, but that would be  subject  to a limited  judicial review.  The majority judgement  declared that speakers/ chairman  “ hold a pivotal position in the scheme of Parliamentary democracy and are guardians of the rights and privileges of the House”,  whereas  the minority judgement highlighted  the inherent conflict of interest in the role of speakers   and stated that “  speaker being an authority within the House and his tenure being dependent on the will of majority therein, likelihood of suspicion of bias could not be ruled out.” Subsequent political developments have regrettably  validated  the apprehensions  expressed in the minority judgement. Speakers  have often behaved in  an outright   partisan manner and have blatantly  corrupted the judicial process that was entrusted to them with high hopes  and expectations. 

In 2003, the law was modified  by disallowing a split and only merger with some other party  by not less than two thirds of the members  protected them from disqualification. The dubious logic of disallowing splits and allowing mergers is beyond comprehension. It implies that splitting away of  a large group constituting at least two thirds of membership  from the originally party is constitutionally immoral, but it is  not immoral if they  merge with some other party. 

Disqualification  of dissenting members is justified claiming that members get elected only because they are nominated by his/her party. In reality,  voters never disclose reasons why they voted in favour of a particular candidate. Individual popularity and merits of a candidate also count when voters cast their votes in his/her own favour. Though the multi-party system offers many advantages , the  hollow premise that electoral success is  dependent on party-affiliations alone is not convincing at all.  The purpose of the  anti-defection enactment is to protect the multi-party political system and render stability to governments ruled by various parties. However, our political parties are mostly dominated by dynasties and personality cults. The will of one person or dynasty runs supreme within a party and there is no room for inner-party democracy or criticism of the top leadership. This is not democracy  but a delusion of democracy. Political leaders  want anti-defection law not because they respect high constitutional morality but because it helps them to perpetuate their hold over a political party.   

“ Dissent is the safety valve of  democracy”- the Chief Justice of India,  Chandrachud famously said this in one of his judgements. The anti-defection law is ostensibly aimed to promote democracy but real intent is to stifle internal dissent. Thus, safety valves are missing and this is likely to result in  explosive situations, as it happened in Maharashtra where 39 out of 55 members of Shiv Sena expressed lack of  confidence  in their party leadership     and asserted  that they and not the Thackerays are the real Shiv Sena.  If our politicians are so intent on preserving and strengthening  the multi-party system, let them opt for the proportional representation system. However, that would amount to  formation of coalition governments and accepting  unpalatable political compromises.  But leaders addicted to uncontrolled and unchallenged  power won’t accept political uncertainties that  would encourage dissent in their own party. This is why in India  political hypocrisy has prevailed and  constitutional morality has suffered.

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