The Anti-Defection Law

In 2025, the Supreme Court found a defection case still undecided, nearly a year after it was filed. By March 2026, the Speaker had dismissed every petition, clearing all ten MLAs. The law says legislators who defect should be disqualified. It never says how long the person judging that can take. It doesn’t say what happens if the delay itself decides the outcome. This article covers the Anti-Defection Law, and the 40-year argument over that gap.

40 Years of the Anti-Defection Law

Polity0090

1985

52nd Amendment

Tenth Schedule creates the law

1992

Kihoto Hollohan

Judicial review restored

2003

91st Amendment

Split loophole closed

2025–26

Telangana Case

SC forces a ruling; all 10 MLAs cleared

The unresolved gap: courts can’t rule on a defection case themselves, but can now order a decision within a set time — treating open-ended delay as a form of denial.

⬇ Download as image

Timeline

• 1985: The 52nd Amendment adds the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, creating the Anti-Defection Law.
• 1992: In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu, the Supreme Court upholds the law, but strikes down the clause barring judicial review of a Speaker’s decision.
• 2003: The 91st Amendment removes the one-third “split” exception, and requires a two-thirds majority for a valid merger.
• 2025: In Padi Kaushik Reddy v. State of Telangana, the Supreme Court criticises a Speaker’s year-long inaction, and orders a ruling within three months.
• 2026: After contempt notices and a final ultimatum from the Court, the Speaker dismisses all ten petitions on 11 March 2026, clearing every defecting MLA.

Must Know

• The 52nd Amendment (1985) added the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, creating India’s Anti-Defection Law. It disqualifies MPs and MLAs who defect after being elected.
• A member can be disqualified on two grounds: voluntarily giving up party membership, or voting or abstaining against the party’s whip without prior permission.
• In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), the Supreme Court upheld the law’s validity, but struck down the paragraph that had barred judicial review of the Speaker’s decisions.
• The Speaker or Chairman decides disqualification petitions. That decision can still be challenged in the High Courts and Supreme Court, on grounds of mala fide, perversity, or a violation of natural justice.

Good to Know

• The 91st Amendment (2003) removed the “split” exception. Before it, a group as small as one-third of a party’s legislators could defect together without disqualification.
• After 2003, only a merger backed by at least two-thirds of a party’s legislators counts as valid. Defecting in a smaller group no longer escapes disqualification.
• In Keisham Meghchandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur (2020), the Supreme Court said Speakers should decide disqualification petitions within three months, barring exceptional circumstances.
• Despite that ruling, the Telangana Speaker took until March 2026 to decide, 15 months past the Supreme Court’s three-month deadline. The Court issued contempt notices in November 2025, then a final three-week ultimatum in February 2026, before the Speaker finally ruled.
• The Speaker’s eventual ruling dismissed every petition, finding no proof of “voluntary” defection. All ten MLAs, whose party switch had been public since 2024, kept their seats.
• The term “political party” does appear in the Constitution — it was written into the Tenth Schedule itself by the 52nd Amendment, which defines disqualification in terms of a member’s original political party and any subsequent merger of that party.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. Which constitutional amendment added the Tenth Schedule and created India’s Anti-Defection Law?

42nd Amendment

44th Amendment

52nd Amendment

91st Amendment

 Loading…

 

Great to Know

• Courts can’t tell a Speaker how to rule on a defection petition — that substance is the Speaker’s call. But courts can, and increasingly do, order a decision within a set time, treating open-ended delay itself as a kind of denial.
• The Telangana case wasn’t a one-off, and its ending makes the pattern sharper. The same complaint — a Speaker deciding, or not deciding, exactly when it suits the ruling party — has recurred across states for years. Here, two years of delay ended in dismissal, not disqualification. The law compelled a ruling. It couldn’t compel an outcome.
• The law’s core tension hasn’t moved since 1985: it protects party discipline and government stability, but hands a quasi-judicial power to a political officer, whose own party ties can shape how fast that power gets used.
• The Tenth Schedule sits inside the Constitution’s wider set of Schedules — see Polity0038 — The Constitution’s 12 Schedules and the Venkatachaliah Commission for how it fits alongside the others.
• A nominated legislator can actually join a political party within six months of taking their seat without being disqualified — the law works the opposite way from how it’s often assumed. Disqualification only kicks in if they join a party AFTER that six-month window. Separately, the law sets no time-frame at all for a presiding officer to decide a defection case, a real gap that has let some cases drag on for years.

Previous Year Question

• UPSC CSP 2025: Neither statement is correct. It is the Speaker or Chairman of the House — not the President — whose decision on a Tenth Schedule disqualification question is final, subject to judicial review. And the term “political party” is not absent from the Constitution; it appears directly in the Tenth Schedule itself. See UPSC CSP 2025 GS Paper I, Q88.