The Anti-Defection Law

The law says a legislator who defects should be disqualified. It never says how long the person judging that can take — and a 2026 Telangana case shows exactly what that gap costs.

1What the Tenth Schedule Actually Does

Must Know

• The 52nd Amendment, 1985 added the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, creating India’s Anti-Defection Law.
• It disqualifies an MP or MLA on two grounds: voluntarily giving up party membership, or voting (or abstaining) against the party’s whip without prior permission.
• “Voluntarily giving up membership” is broader than a formal resignation letter. In Ravi S. Naik v. Union of India (1994), the Supreme Court ruled a Speaker can infer it from conduct alone — public statements, campaigning for a rival party — even with no letter on record. It’s a fact-specific test, not automatic: courts have upheld some such rulings and quashed others for lack of real proof.

2Who Decides, and How That Can Be Challenged

Must Know

• The Speaker or Chairman decides disqualification petitions — a political officer, not a neutral judge. That decision can still be challenged in the High Courts and Supreme Court, on grounds of mala fide, perversity, or a breach of natural justice.
• In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), the Supreme Court upheld the law itself, but struck down the one clause that had tried to bar judicial review of the Speaker’s decisions entirely.
• Courts still can’t tell a Speaker how to rule on the substance of a case. What they increasingly do instead is order a decision within a set time — treating open-ended delay itself as a kind of denial.

3Closing the One-Third “Split” Loophole

Good to Know

• Before 2003, a group as small as one-third of a party’s legislators could defect together as a “split” and keep their seats.
• The 91st Amendment, 2003 removed that exception entirely. Only a merger backed by at least two-thirds of a party’s legislators now counts as valid — defecting in a smaller group no longer escapes disqualification.
• The term “political party” really does appear in the Constitution. The 52nd Amendment wrote it into the Tenth Schedule itself, defining disqualification in terms of a member’s original party and any later merger of that party.

4The Exemptions Nobody Expects

Good to Know

• A nominated legislator can actually join a political party within six months of taking their seat without being disqualified — the rule runs the opposite way from how it’s often assumed. Disqualification only kicks in if they join a party after that six-month window.
• By custom, a member elected Speaker or Deputy Speaker gives up their party membership, to signal impartiality while presiding over the House. Paragraph 5 of the Tenth Schedule protects exactly this — leaving the party on election to that office isn’t treated as a disqualifying defection, and neither is rejoining the same party after leaving the post.
• 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, as the next section shows.

5When the System Breaks Down: The Telangana Case

Current Affairs

• In Keisham Meghchandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur (2020), the Supreme Court said Speakers should decide disqualification petitions within three months, barring exceptional circumstances — a guideline, not a hard rule written into the law itself.
• Ten Telangana MLAs switched parties in 2024, a defection that was public from the start. The Speaker still hadn’t ruled by 2025. In Padi Kaushik Reddy v. State of Telangana (2025), the Supreme Court criticised the year-long inaction and ordered a ruling within three months.
• The Speaker missed that deadline too. The Court issued contempt notices in November 2025, then a final three-week ultimatum in February 2026. On 11 March 2026 — fifteen months past the Court’s original three-month limit — the Speaker finally ruled, dismissing every petition for lack of proof of “voluntary” defection. All ten MLAs kept their seats.
• The law compelled a ruling. It couldn’t compel an outcome. That’s the same tension the Tenth Schedule has carried since 1985: it hands a quasi-judicial power to a political officer, whose own party ties can shape how fast — and which way — that power gets used.

6The Raghav Chadha “Merger”: The Rule Tested Live

Current Affairs

• On 24 April 2026, Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha and six other AAP MPs announced they were leaving the party to join the BJP, calling it a “merger” rather than individual defections.
• Their defence rests on the exact two-thirds rule this article covers: they claimed the seven MPs made up at least two-thirds of AAP’s Rajya Sabha strength, which under the Tenth Schedule’s merger exception would put the move outside the disqualification net.
• AAP disputed this and filed a disqualification petition, but the Rajya Sabha Chairman accepted the merger claim. Legal experts remain split — a 2023 Constitution Bench ruling on the Shiv Sena split had already said a valid merger needs support from the parent party’s structure outside the House too, not just a headcount of legislators inside it. As of this writing, the Supreme Court hasn’t issued a final ruling.
• The case is a live test of exactly the loophole this article’s “Closing the One-Third Split Loophole” section describes: the two-thirds merger exception survived the 91st Amendment specifically so genuine party mergers wouldn’t be punished as defection — critics argue this use stretches that intent past its purpose.

Quick Q&A

• Who decides a defection disqualification case? The Speaker or Chairman — not the President, the Supreme Court, or the political party itself.
• What did the 91st Amendment change in 2003? It scrapped the one-third “split” exception, so only a two-thirds-backed merger now escapes disqualification.
• Does the law set a deadline for a Speaker’s ruling? No. That gap is exactly what let the Telangana case run 15 months past the Supreme Court’s own three-month guideline.
• Can a nominated MP join a party right away? Yes, within six months of taking their seat, without being disqualified. Only joining after that window triggers disqualification.
• Has the Chadha “merger” been finally settled? No. The Rajya Sabha Chairman accepted it as a merger, but the Supreme Court hasn’t yet ruled, and legal experts are divided.