Anti Defection Law Case Study

“The political history of the country, particularly in smaller states, bears testimony to the fact that the anti-defection law has brought more instability than stability. We can consider the hindrance the anti-defection law had caused to government formation in Bihar thereby compelling another election within six months in 2005 ”.
It becomes a necessity that the scholars talk about the kind of reforms that are needed in the Anti-Defection Law and not just sit and talk over its ill effects. This section talks about some suggestions that ought to be helpful in reforming the Anti-Defection Law in the right and most suitable manner.
“Several terms like ‘political parties’, ‘split’, ‘merger’, etc have not been defined and many problems have been caused due to such ambiguity ”. It becomes a compulsion to define such words in a clear and

As P.A. Sangma, Speaker of the Eleventh Lok Sabha said: “What kind of law is this that if you defect individually, you are committing an illegal act, and if you detect in group of one-third, you are not accused of any illegality.” If we are sincere about outlawing defections, anyone voluntarily changing his party affiliation after being elected on a particular party ticket must automatically and immediately lose his seat in the legislature . There should be no exceptions and no provisos.
The two terms which do not find a clear understanding are – ‘unattached’ and ‘expulsion’. It was repeatedly stressed upon by various scholars that the Anti-Defection Law needed to be amended to prevent the leaders from resorting to the device of ‘expulsions’ and the presiding officers from rushing to declare members as ‘unattached’. What is of great value is that the presiding officers themselves believe that there needs to be an amendment made in this law so that the ambiguity is