It is for Parliament to rein in partisan Speakers: SC | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said that it was for Parliament to legislate and provide a time frame for adjudication of disqualification petitions against legislators by the Speakers, who of late have adopted a partisan approach to keep the decision on such pleas pending for long periods to benefit the ruling dispensation.
Dealing with a PIL, which sought a direction to the Speakers to expeditiously dispose of disqualification petitions and argued that delayed decision negated the mandate of anti-defection provisions of the Constitution, a bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy said, “How can we make a law providing a time frame for Speakers to decide disqualification petitions? It is a matter for Parliament to deliberate and decides.”
The SC had from time to time expressed its displeasure over the inordinate delay on the part of the Speakers to decide such petitions. In January 2020, an SC bench headed by Justice R F Nariman had fixed a three-month timeline for the Manipur Assembly Speaker to decide a disqualification petition.
A bench headed by Justice Ramana, on November 23, 2019, in Srimanth B Patil vs Speaker of Karnataka Assembly, had made a detailed analysis of the issues that have cropped up undermining the efficacy of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which was inserted to stop money and post allurements for the defection of legislators from one party to another.
Justice Ramana had said, “In any case, there is a growing trend of Speakers acting against the constitutional duty of being neutral. Additionally, political parties are indulging in horse-trading and corrupt practices, due to which the citizens are denied stable governments. In these circumstances, the Parliament is required to re­consider strengthening certain aspects of the Tenth Schedule, so that such undemocratic practices are discouraged.”
The bench had also said, “We need to note that the Speaker, being a neutral person, is expected to act independently while conducting the proceedings of the house or adjudication of any petitions. The constitutional responsibility endowed upon him has to be scrupulously followed. His political affiliations cannot come in the way of adjudication. If the Speaker is not able to disassociate from his political party and behaves contrary to the spirit of neutrality and independence, such person does not deserve to be reposed with public trust and confidence.”
On Thursday, petitioner Ranajit Mukherjee told the SC that the actions of the Speaker of different states, and their failure to take timely action in the face of recent political defections, is arbitrary.
“The action of the Speakers in this regard is bound by no clear guidelines or time-frame. Unwarranted and mala-fide delays on the part of the Speakers goes against the very objects and reasons of the Anti-Defection Law. Lastly, not holding defectors accountable frustrates the public mandate… There is an urgent necessity for laying down guidelines to govern the conduct of Speakers/ presiding officers of Houses, and providing a time-frame within which they must act if the provisions of the Tenth Schedule are to be meaningfully implemented. Not doing so endangers the integrity of the Indian democracy,” the petitioner said through counsel Abhishek Bajaj.