Ridiculous to expect Speaker to decide neutrally on disqualification for defection: Abhishek Manu Singhvi

Senior Counsel Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Wednesday criticized the existing mechanism under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution of India that empowers the Speaker of a legislative house to decide on whether a legislator should be disqualified for defection to another political party..The former Rajya Sabha member of Parliament (MP) minced no words in expressing his personal view that it was impractical to expect Speakers to be neutral in making such decisions. He opined that the existing procedure under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution should be scrapped. He also lamented that in many cases, disqualification petitions do not get decided by the Speaker for over six months."The whole system is flawed and the 10th schedule should be scrapped, but delay (on deciding disqualification petitions) is natural. If the Speaker of the same party is deciding these, how can there be objectivity? ... Time has come to abolish the persona designata of the 10th Schedule (Speaker). If they are sick, there is no one else at present. Inconceivable to think that a Speaker being elected from a particular party's ticket will be a paragon of virtue. It is an ideal hope that does not work in practice. Absolutely ridiculous to expect a speaker to be neutral!" he said..He went on to suggest that the question of who should be appointed the Speaker could be pre-decided by all political parties to ensure objectivity. However, he added that such a consensus between political parties would never be achieved..Singhvi further remarked that unlike in other democracies, Indian voters tend to award legislators who defect."You cannot legislate morality. We have borrowed this system from England but how many defections happen there? They (voters in England) do not reward defections. It is fault of you and I that we keep re-electing them (in India). 10th Schedule and Speaker (now) is absolutely not worth the paper it is written on. Changing of parties is unheard of (in UK, US) because it is believed that the electorate will punish you!" he said..Dr. Singhvi made these comments while speaking as part of a discussion organised by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy on the theme, Decoding Defection. The discussion was moderated by the think tank's founder and Research Director, Arghya Sengupta..Singhvi began the discussion on a lighter note, joking about how he himself has been a victim of defections within the political party that he is a part of, the Indian National Congress.Notably, the senior counsel had recently lost the Rajya Sabha elections from Himachal Pradesh after six Congress legislators cross-voted for the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate..AM Singhvi appears in Supreme Court against six Himachal Congress MLAs whose cross-voting led to his loss.His address also touched upon the powers of the Whip in a parliamentary democracy. He conceded that party discipline and organisation is important, but added that whips should not be needlessly issued. "It is time we reform the whip. I believe in being reformist, not abolitionist ...I am very open about this. For everything and anything you issue a whip, you have to be shown, say three-line whips. Negative point is lot of creativity is killed by the whip. Initiating arguments, voting, etc. is harmed by the whip ... Creative parliamentarians are stultified by the whip. They are not seen because we perceive they only throw chairs," he said..Singhvi added that there has been an increase in instances of defection in the recent years because of weakened institutions. "Last 4-5 years it has happened because institutions are deflated and devalued. It succeeds because of lack of institutional independence and integrity.".In the context of the 2023 split of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) into two factions (one led by Sharad Pawar and another led by his nephew, Ajit Pawar), Singhvi also criticized the the Election Commission of India's use of the legislative party test to determine the real party..Ajit Pawar to retain clock; Supreme Court orders ECI to recognise Sharad Pawar with new symbol.Singhvi said that using the legislative party test was flawed because the legislative party is based on defections, unlike the organisational wing of the original party.Pertinently, Singhvi was critical of the Supreme Court's refusal to reinstate Uddhav Thackeray as Maharashtra Chief Minister, in the wake of the Shiv Sena's split into the Thackeray faction and the Eknath Shinde faction. Notably, in a May 2023 judgment, the Supreme Court had observed that it was wrong of Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to call for a floor test after the Shiv Sena's split, since there was not enough evidence at the time to indicate that the then-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had lost confidence. However, the Court added that it could not extend any further relief to Thackeray since he had resigned from his post of Chief Minister after the floor test was called, instead of facing the floor test. Commenting on how this case progressed before the top court, Singhvi said:"People already became ministers by the time the Shinde judgment came. Flaw was when they refused to stay floor test during notice. How can the judgment then ask that 'because you resigned we cannot (restore status quo)'? If the root is bad, the flower will be bad. Court first said no stay on floor test, then that is used to uphold the defection (in effect). Case of no remedy ... At the end of the day you also have to adjudicate fairly. Be holistic, not holier than thou or sermonising when spotting Constitutional sins.".[Follow our live-coverage of the event]