The Supreme Court, hearing petitions seeking the disqualification of BRS MLAs for defection, observed that the 10th Schedule of the Constitution — the anti-defection law —instituted to prevent ‘Aya Rams’ and ‘Gaya Rams’ was not serving its purpose. Instead of preventing defections, political parties were encouraging the practice.
Hyderabad:The Supreme Court, hearing petitions seeking the disqualification of BRS MLAs for defection, observed that the 10th Schedule of the Constitution — the anti-defection law —instituted to prevent ‘Aya Rams’ and ‘Gaya Rams’ was not serving its purpose. Instead of preventing defections, political parties were encouraging the practice.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice B.R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih also observed that the authority of the Constitution Courts was not less than any other Constitutional authority, and their hands could not be tied by claiming interference from courts.
The bench was hearing petitions filed by BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy and others challenging the Telangana High Court division bench order asking the Assembly Speaker to take a decision on the party’s disqualification petitions within “reasonable time”. The High Court had not mentioned the duration of “reasonable time”. Moreover, it set aside the single judge order which had directed the Assembly to place the disqualification petitions before the Speaker and fix the schedule of hearing, within four weeks.
Following the notices of the Supreme Court, the Assembly secretary filed a counter affidavit and senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the secretary, raised the objection that courts could not direct the Speaker to decide the disqualification petitions as it would intervene in the Speaker’s jurisdiction. He said it was is better to place the issue before a Constitutional Bench.
Aryama Sundaram, senior counsel, representing Kaushik Reddy and others, noted that the Assembly secretary, who had no authority other than assisting the Speaker, had come to defend the indecision of the Speaker.
Objecting to the contention that courts could not exercise their authority over the Speaker’s jurisdiction, senior counsel argued that asking the Speaker to act as per the Constitutional mandate was different from judicial review and was not interference.
Aryama Sundaram pointed out that the Constitutional Courts had the authority to ask other Constitutional authorities to discharge their Constitutional duties and this did not tantamount to interference of jurisdiction. He submitted that in some cases, Constitutional Courts had directly disqualified defected MLAs, when an appropriate decision was delayed.
The apex court asked senior counsel that when the various benches of the Supreme Court had interpreted differently the “reasonable time” for a Speaker, “how can we (Bench) cross such judgments and consider one case law and direct the Speaker to take a decision in a specified time-line.”
Aryama Sundaram said that the Speaker had not taken action even after eight months. Following the Supreme Court’s observations, the Speaker’s office had recently issued notices to the defected MLAs. Some of them sought four months to file their explanation, when the notice asked for the reply in a week.
The bench observed that the complaints were reaching their anniversary and sarcastically said that it was fortunate that the MLAs had not asked for four years time to file counters.
Senior counsel Dama Sheshadri Naidu, representing another petitioner, submitted that during the enactment of the 10th Schedule, the then law minister had told Parliament that authority was given to the Speaker to take quick decisions on defectors. This has to be considered when deciding the timeframe to take a decision on disqualification petitions.
Counsel appearing for BJP floor leader Aleti Maheshwar Reddy raised the same points and adopted the arguments of the senior counsels. The court adjourned the hearing to April 2 for counter submissions from the Speaker’s office and the Assembly secretary.
