In the 1960s and 1970s, Indian politics was rocked by a phenomenon nicknamed aaya Ram, gaya Ram, after a Haryana legislator who changed parties three times in a single day. Governments fell as MLAs were lured across the floor, and the phrase became shorthand for political instability. Parliament’s answer, in 1985, was the anti-defection law: the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, added by the 52nd Amendment, which disqualifies elected lawmakers who defect from their parties.

What the Tenth Schedule says

The law applies to members of Parliament and state legislatures. A member is disqualified if they voluntarily give up membership of their political party, or if they vote or abstain from voting in the House contrary to the party’s direction, known as the whip, without permission. The law also covers nominated members who join a party after six months, and independent members who join any party after election. The intention was to punish the classic defection: winning on one party’s ticket and then crossing over to another.

Who decides, and how the process works

Disqualification petitions are decided by the presiding officer of the House, the Speaker in the Lok Sabha and assemblies, the Chairman in the Rajya Sabha. Their decision was originally final and beyond judicial review, but the Supreme Court’s 1992 judgment in Kihoto Hollohan held that the Speaker acts as a tribunal, so the decision is subject to judicial review on limited grounds such as mala fides or perversity. In practice, the process has a well-known weakness: Speakers, who usually belong to the ruling party, have sometimes delayed decisions for months or years, allowing disputed governments to survive.

The merger exception and its misuse

The Schedule originally exempted splits: if one-third of a party’s legislators broke away, it counted as a split and no disqualification followed. This loophole was widely abused to engineer defections in bulk, so the 91st Amendment in 2003 deleted the split provision and raised the bar to a merger, which requires the support of at least two-thirds of the party’s legislators. Even so, critics argue that the merger route is still used to legitimise mass defections, with breakaway groups claiming they represent the real party.

Why the law remains controversial

Supporters say the law brought stability and ended the worst era of floor-crossing. Critics raise several objections. First, it curbs dissent: an MP who disagrees with their party on a matter of conscience risks disqualification for voting against the whip, which concentrates power in party leaderships. Second, it has not stopped the creative circumvention of its rules, most visibly through resignations, since a member who resigns and contests a by-election on a new ticket faces no disqualification. Third, the reliance on Speakers as adjudicators creates conflicts of interest. Proposals for reform include shifting decisions to the President or Governor acting on the Election Commission’s advice, and imposing strict time limits for deciding petitions. Reform proposals also suggest limiting disqualification to votes on confidence motions and money bills, so that MPs could dissent on ordinary legislation without fear of losing their seats.

Landmark cases that shaped the law

• Kihoto Hollohan (1992): upheld the Tenth Schedule’s validity but opened Speakers’ decisions to judicial review.
• Nabam Rebia (2016): held that a Speaker facing a removal notice cannot decide disqualification petitions, a ruling relevant to the Arunachal Pradesh crisis.
• The Maharashtra and Karnataka episodes (2019-2023): raised questions about the timing of Speaker decisions and the use of resignations to bypass the law.
• Shiv Sena split litigation: tested whether a faction could claim to be the real party while defying the whip.

FAQs

Does the anti-defection law apply to voting against the party on every issue? Technically yes, whenever a valid whip is issued. In practice, parties issue whips mainly for crucial votes like no-confidence motions and money bills.

Can a disqualified member contest elections again? Yes. Disqualification only removes them from the current House; they can contest fresh elections, including by-elections.

Does the law apply to the Rajya Sabha? Yes, it applies to members of both Houses of Parliament and all state legislatures.

Four decades on, the Tenth Schedule has reduced the crude party-hopping of the 1970s but has not ended political engineering; it has merely pushed it into new forms, from engineered resignations to disputed mergers, keeping the law itself at the centre of India’s political battles.

Compiled by the Khabar 24h Editorial Desk from publicly available sources.