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In the late 1960s and 70s, defections (elected legislators changing parties after the election) in Parliament and State Legislatures became very frequent, so frequent in fact, that the epithet "Aaya Ram Gaya Ram" was coined to describe the same. To curb this problem which created instability in our legislatures, Parliament amended the Constitution. They inserted the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution "to curb the evil of political defections". As a result, we currently have an anti-defection law with the following features: 1. If an MP/MLA who belongs to a political party voluntarily resigns from his party or, disobeys the party "whip" (a direction given by the party to all MPs/ MLAs to vote in a certain manner), he is disqualified. The party may however condone the MP/ MLA within 15 days. 2. An independent MP/ MLA cannot join a political party after the election. 3. An MP/ MLA who is nominated (to the Rajya Sabha or upper houses in state legislatures) can only join a party within 6 months of his election. 4. Mergers of well-defined groups of individuals or political parties are exempted from disqualification if certain conditions are met. 5. The decision to disqualify is taken by the Speaker/ Chairman of the House. The table below summarizes provisions of anti-defection law in some other countries. (For more, click here). As one may note, a number of developed countries do not have any law to regulate defection.
Regulation of defection in some countries |
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Country | Experi-ence | Law on defection | The Law on Defection |
Bangladesh | Yes | Yes | The Constitution says a member shall vacate his seat if he resigns from or votes against the directions given by his party. The dispute is referred by the Speaker to the Election Commission. |
Kenya | Yes | Yes | The Constitution states that a member who resigns from his party has to vacate his seat. The decision is by the Speaker, and the member may appeal to the High Court. |
Singapore | Yes | Yes | Constitution says a member must vacate his seat if he resigns, or is expelled from his party. Article 48 states that Parliament decides on any question relating to the disqualification of a member. |
South Africa | Yes | Yes | The Constitution provides that a member loses membership of the Parliament if he ceases to be a member of the party that nominated him. |
Australia | Yes | No | |
Canada | Yes | No | |
France | Yes | No | |
Germany | Yes | No | |
Malaysia | Yes | No | |
United Kingdom | Yes | No |
The central government appointed the J&K Interlocutors Group on October 13, 2010. The Group submitted the Report to the Home Ministry earlier this year. The Report was made public by the Home Ministry on May 24, 2012. It may be noted that under Article 370 of the Constitution special status has been granted to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The power of the Parliament to legislate is restricted to defence, external affairs, communication and central elections. However, the President may with the concurrence of the state government extend other central laws to the state. Furthermore, in 1952, an agreement known as the Delhi Agreement was entered into between the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the central government. The Agreement too provided that the state government shall have sovereignty on all subjects except for matters specified above. However, since then some central laws relating to other subjects such as environment have been made applicable to the state. This blog post divides the recommendation into two broad headings: political; and socio-economic. It also looks at the roadmap proposed by the Group to achieve these recommendations. Political recommendations:
Cultural, Economic and Social Recommendations:
In order to fulfil these recommendations, the Interlocutor’s Group proposed the following roadmap:
The full report may be accessed here. Sources:
[1] Article 371 provides certain ‘special provisions’ with respect to states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim