The revision continues

The Tenth Schedule was incorporated into the Constitution in 1985 through the 52nd Amendment Act and it is also referred to as the Anti Defection Law. The Tenth Schedule brought some discipline among the elected members since the constitution did not have any law defined for a multi party system in the country . To retrospect, during the years after the first General Election, the country technically did not have a multi party system due to the dominance by the Indian Nation Congress. It was only later in the sixties that the other parties started to have electoral successes ushering in the era of coalition politics in the country. However, with it came the practice of defection with unstable governments both in the Centre and the states. The Tenth Schedule decreased the number of defection to some extent and after the 91st Amendment Act , 2003, it literally became impossible to defect except for mergers by more than 2/3rd of the members. In Nagaland the Tenth Schedule with its various sections have been in close scrutiny and interpretation for the past three years since the crisis in the DAN started in 2014 after three BJP MLAs were disqualified initially. This was followed by the case of the dissident MLAs of 2015 who even though voted for the government, their disqualification petitions were submitted by the party president. Then came the petitions against 8 Congress MLAs who later merged with the NPF party. Now, with the fourth Chief Minister being sworn in the current tenure the details of the features of the Tenth Schedule is still being revisited with another floor test approaching. In a very unique case the party organisation along with 10 MLAS supporting the former chief minister are now in the minority whereas remaining 36 MLAs who rebelled against their party president are in the majority and have already formed the government. The Tenth Schedule is quite clear on the defection of elected members, voluntary giving up of memberships of a political party and also the case of mergers. The present crisis instead have presented a case where the party president led party organisation has lesser MLAs and the other group has more in number that prompted the Governor to invite their leader to form the government. The Tenth Schedule empowers the political parties to keep their flock together so that the ticket on which the elected members contested the elections is not discarded after winning elections for the sake power or even corruption. However the Tenth Schedule has also provided enough space for mergers by political party MLAs which acknowledges the wisdom of the elected members and also their status as the mandated people’s representatives to take decisions that is good for them and the people they represent. So ultimately the majority should have the bigger say although detailed procedures may not have been incorporated in the Tenth Schedule. The one maxim that the Supreme Court has followed over the years in such cases is to protect the majority. However, a close scrutiny of the Tenth Schedule on the appointment of the party Chief Whip looks quite imminent even after the floor test is over.