Tenth Schedule — Anti-Defection Law

The Tenth Schedule was inserted into the Constitution of India by the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985, which simultaneously amended Articles 101, 102, 190 and 191 to provide that a member who incurs disqualification under the Schedule vacates the seat. The reform answered decades of legislative instability epitomised by the 1967 Haryana episode in which MLA Gaya Lal crossed the floor three times in a fortnight, coining the phrase "Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram." The Schedule's stated object, recorded in the statement of objects and reasons, was to curb "the evil of political defections" that subverted the electoral mandate and corrupted public life. It applies to both Houses of Parliament and to the legislative assemblies and councils of the states, binding members elected on a party ticket, independents, and nominated members alike.

The procedural core lies in Paragraph 2, which specifies two principal triggers for disqualification of a member belonging to a political party. The first is voluntarily giving up membership of that party. The second is voting or abstaining in the House contrary to a direction (a whip) issued by the party, unless the conduct is condoned by the party within fifteen days. An independent member is disqualified under Paragraph 2(2) on joining any political party after election. A nominated member, under Paragraph 2(3), may join a party within six months of taking the seat but is disqualified for joining one thereafter. The question whether a member has become subject to disqualification is decided, under Paragraph 6, by the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha or Legislative Council, or the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly, whose decision the Schedule originally purported to make final.

Paragraph 4 carves out the exception of a merger: disqualification is not incurred where the original party merges with another and not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party agree to the merger. The members may then either join the merged party or function as a separate group, and neither faction is penalised. Crucially, the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 deleted Paragraph 3, which had earlier exempted a "split" by one-third of the party's legislators. The 2003 amendment thereby removed the most exploited escape route, simultaneously capping the Council of Ministers at fifteen per cent of the House strength and barring a disqualified defector from holding any ministerial or remunerative political office until re-election. Paragraph 7 had attempted to oust the jurisdiction of courts entirely, a clause the Supreme Court would later read down.

Contemporary practice shows the Schedule operating amid persistent controversy in Indian state capitals. In Karnataka in July 2019, Speaker K. R. Ramesh Kumar disqualified seventeen Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs whose resignations preceded the fall of the H. D. Kumaraswamy government; the Supreme Court in Shrimanth Balasaheb Patil v. Speaker (2019) upheld the disqualifications but struck down the bar on contesting by-elections. In Madhya Pradesh in March 2020, twenty-two MLAs aligned with Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned, precipitating the resignation of Chief Minister Kamal Nath and the return of Shivraj Singh Chouhan. In Maharashtra in 2022, the split led by Eknath Shinde within the Shiv Sena generated a protracted disqualification dispute before Speaker Rahul Narwekar and the Supreme Court's Subhash Desai bench.

The Tenth Schedule must be distinguished from the related disqualifications under Article 102(1) and Article 103, which cover office of profit, unsound mind, insolvency and foreign citizenship and are decided by the President on the opinion of the Election Commission. It is equally distinct from the office of profit doctrine and from the corrupt-practice provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Anti-defection bears on intra-party discipline after election; it does not police pre-election conduct or campaign finance. The merger exception under Paragraph 4 is frequently confused with the deleted split provision, but the two differ in threshold and in legal survival: merger at two-thirds remains valid, while split at one-third was abolished in 2003.

The dominant controversy concerns the adjudicatory role of the presiding officer. In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), the Supreme Court upheld the Schedule's validity but declared Paragraph 7 unconstitutional for want of ratification by the states under Article 368(2), and held that the Speaker acts as a tribunal whose decision is subject to judicial review on grounds of mala fides, perversity or violation of natural justice. In Keisham Meghachandra Singh (2020) the Court suggested that Parliament reconsider vesting this power in the Speaker, who is often a partisan figure, and recommended a permanent independent tribunal headed by a retired judge. Repeated instances of Speakers indefinitely deferring decisions have prompted the Court to set outer limits, indicating that petitions should ordinarily be decided within three months.

For the working practitioner, the Tenth Schedule is indispensable to reading Indian coalition politics, government formation, and the cycle of "resort politics" in which legislators are sequestered to prevent defection. UPSC General Studies Paper II candidates must master the two disqualification triggers, the two-thirds merger exception, the abolition of the split provision in 2003, and the Kihoto Hollohan limits on finality. Desk officers and analysts tracking state-government stability should watch the interplay between resignations, whips, and Speaker timelines, since the Schedule's enforcement gaps frequently determine whether a ministry survives a trust vote.