Anti Defection Law: PIL Moved Before Bombay High Court Challenging The Paragraph 4 of The 10 Th Schedule of The Indian Constitution

(Judicial Quest News Network)

A PIL is moved before Bombay High Court challenging paragraph 4 of the 10^th schedule of the Indian Constitution which grants protection to the legislatures in case of the merger of political parties.

Advocate Ahmed Abdi, appearing for the petitioner, today argued that legislators change political parties due to fear of agencies and voters are not considered during such changes.

The division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Devendra Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor granted 6 weeks of time to Union Government to file its reply to the PIL.

The PIL is filed by Meenakshi Menon, a media and marketing professional and founder of trustee of NGO Vanshakti.

Meenakshi’s lawyer submitted that the defection is a social evil and in this process of changing loyalties voters suffers a lot and they do not have an option to go to parliament, voter can only come to the court.

Because the vote is obtained on particular political ideology or manifesto of a political party but later, they change the party.

This is a betrayal of the trust of the voter.

The plea sought that the legislatures defecting should be restrained from participating in legislative proceedings or holding constitutional posts until their disqualification is legally resolved. defections in the

The petitioner further said that unabated group defections in the form of split and merger under para 4 of the 10^th schedule of the constitution has become part of political culture with complete disregard to the act of betrayal to voters.

This act of the politicians is leading to further alienation of the general public to the process of election itself.

Wherein thousands of crores of tax payers’ money are spent without any accountability.

The petition states that the voters have become mere spectators with a sense of disillusionment with the system when legislator’s merger with other political parties.

“The money changing hands have immensely increased and it has led to more political instability. It is pathetic to see that the legislatures are being traded like stock of the share market which reduces the democracy without democratic value and culture to a hypocrisy. Poor voters have no say. They are shocked to see how under the law legislators can be allowed to do collectively which they are not allowed to do individually? This goes against the legislative intent behind anti-defection”. The plea states.

The plea has also highlighted that there is no specific time frame for resolving disqualification proceedings against legislator.

This has led the speaker’s role specifically more political, resulting in either immediate disqualification decisions or indefinite delays, depending on the former political affiliation of the speaker’s party.

Menon has added in the plea that defection in the form of split and merger under para 4 of the Tenth schedule of the Constitution.

Case title Meenakshi Menon Vs Union of India