arihant current affairs magazine

arihant current affairs magazine

arihant current affairs magazine Published this article page no  18 The court asked the State Assembly Speaker to decide the disqualification petition in four weeks. Background  For over three decades the office of the Speaker has been under controversies for its decisions on the disqualification of MLAs who switch sides for profit or political power thus undermining democracy. Demand to address this chronic problem has been gaining ground for long. About Antidefection Law  The antidefection law sought to prevent political defections which may be due to reward of office or other similar considerations.  For this the Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution in 1985 by the 52nd Amendment Act.  It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House.  A legislator is deemed to have defected if o he either voluntarily gives up the membership of his party or o disobeys the directives of the party leadership on a vote. This implies that a legislator defying (abstaining or voting against) the party whip on any issue can lose his membership of the House)  The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.  Exceptions under the law Legislators may change their party without the risk of disqualification in certain circumstances. o The law allows a party to merge with or into another party provided that at least twothirds of its legislators are in favour of the merger. o If a person is elected as the speaker of Lok Sabha or the Chairman of Rajya Sabha then he could resign from his party and rejoin the party once he demits that post.  Recent Instances o Latest case is from Manipur which involves disqualification of a Congress legislator who joined the Ruling Bhartiya Janata Party right after the 2017 Assembly elections. The Congress had asked the Manipur Speaker to disqualify him and the Speaker failed to act and kept the petition pending. o Similarly the Supreme Court had to intervene the Karnataka MLAs disqualification case where it had held that a Speaker who cannot stay aloof from the pressures and wishes of his political party does not deserve to occupy his chair. o In Andhra Pradesh 23 opposition partys MLAs had defected over a period of time to ruling Party in the last three years putting a question mark on the role of the speaker. o Again in Telangana in 2016 its legislative assembly speaker had to deal with the defection of 12 of the 15 TDP MLAs in the 119member assembly arihant current affairs magazine buy.

arihant current affairs magazine