Anti-defection law : Time to review it ?

Please see this for basics of Anti-defection such as :

• important amendments 
• what constitute defection
• SC judgement on anti-defection

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It has been more than 3 decades since 52nd constitutional amendment(1985) which added a new Schedule, Tenth, to stop the defection among parliamentarians. The 91st amendment (2003) raised the bar of wholesale defection from 1/3 to 2/3. Let's review it's efficacy and limitations which calls for fine tuning of the law.

Efficacy of Anti-defection law : 

• Provided much needed stability. It has certainly reduced the phenomena of 'aya ram gaya ram' prevalent in 1980s.
• It has also reduced the cases of horse trading.
• Strengthened the position of party over whose ticket MPs contest election.

However, of late anti-defection law in the present form has been felt to be doing more harm than good. Reasons being :

• Stifled individual legislator's voice. MPs/MLAs are representative of their constituencies. Yet they cannot raise will of their constituencies on important issues.
• legislators hostages to political party
• changed the very nature of Westminster model of parliamentary democracy
• fundamental feature of the first-past-the-post system is that it increases the accountability of individual MPs. Anti-defection breaks this link as MPs do not have to justify their individual votes on issues that may be important to their voters.
• removed the need for the government to build a broad consensus for its decisions: ruling party has to convince only the leader of opposition party
• dis-incentivized the individual MPs from taking seriously thinking & researching on any issue.
• at times, it has also led to questioning the neutrality of the post of Speaker, who acts as tribunal on matters pertaining to defection.

Viewed from this perspective, the Tenth Schedule has  violated the fundamental tenets of the Constitution if not the basic structure doctrine.

Thus, it indeed calls for reform. What can they be ? Some of the suggested reforms are : 

• Limiting the areas of applicability of anti-defection law : to such matters as confidence motion, no-confidence motion, adjournment motion, money bill or financial matters.( Dinesh Goswami Committee)
• Law commission in past has also suggested that party issue whip only when government is in danger.
• Reform in post of Speaker : selected legislator should resign from his/her party as a matter of convention as done in UK to make the post more neutral.
• NCRWC 2002 : question of anti-defection may be referred to ECI. 

The above steps will help making legislatures more accountability towards their voters and strengthen the roots of democracy. It will also necessitate the ruling party reach out to individual MPs thereby making most decisions consensus driven.

In the next blog, we will inquire into the relevance of Rajya Sabha ....

This blog is part of "Reforms in Parliament" series.