Congress MP Manish Tewari has launched a non-public member’s invoice in Lok Sabha that seeks to permit parliamentarians to take an impartial line in voting on payments and motions aside from these affecting the federal government’s stability in a bid to free them from “whip-driven tyranny” and promote “good lawmaking”.
Mr. Tewari, who launched the invoice on final Friday (December 5, 2025) to amend the Anti-Defection Regulationmentioned his proposed laws seeks to flag who has primacy in a democracy — the elector who stands within the solar for hours to elect his or her consultant or the political get together whose whip the consultant turns into the helot of.
Opinion | The hollowing out of the anti-defection legislation
The invoice, launched by Mr. Tewari for the third time in Lok Sabha after 2010 and 2021, seeks to present parliamentarians the liberty to toe an impartial line in voting on payments and motions aside from a confidence movement, no-confidence movement, adjournment movement, cash payments and monetary issues that might have an effect on the steadiness of a authorities.
“This invoice seeks to return conscience, constituency and customary sense to the echelons of the legislature in order that an elected consultant truly capabilities because the consultant of the individuals who elected him and never as an instrument of a whip issued by his get together, remodeling lawmakers into mere lobotomised numbers and dogmatic ciphers responding to a division bell,” he informed. PTI,
The assertion of objects and causes of the invoice state that it proposes to amend the Tenth Schedule to the Structure with a view to offer for the next: “a member shall incur lack of his membership solely when he votes or abstains from voting within the Home with regard to a confidence movement, no-confidence movement, adjournment movement, cash invoice or monetary issues, opposite to any path issued on this behalf by the get together to which he belongs, and in no different case”.
“The Chairman or the Speaker of a Home shall make an announcement within the Home relating to any path issued by a political get together in respect of the aforementioned motions, invoice or monetary issues, as quickly as attainable, after such path has been communicated to him by that political get together,” the assertion of objects and causes of the invoice mentioned.
“Whereas making such an announcement, the Chairman or the Speaker of Home shall additionally particularly inform the members that the defiance of the path issued by a political get together by any member shall lead to automated cessation of his membership; and a member shall have the precise to attraction in opposition to cessation of his membership to the Chairman or the Speaker, because the case could also be, inside a interval of fifteen days from the date of such cessation and the attraction shall be disposed of inside a interval of sixty days from the date of its receipt by the Chairman or the Speaker of a Home,” it mentioned.
Talking concerning the invoice, Mr. Tewari mentioned it seeks to realize twin aims — the steadiness of the federal government shouldn’t be impacted and parliamentarians and legislators train legislative selection.
“What is occurring is when Parliament assembles at 2 o’clock within the afternoon, for presidency enterprise, there may be at occasions not even a quorum within the Home. And in reality, there may be an unstated settlement between the treasury benches and the opposition to not elevate the quorum problem in order that if in any respect the Home is functioning and it isn’t disrupted, it will probably proceed,” the Congress MP from Chandigarh mentioned.
The explanation for that is that parliamentarians don’t see a task for themselves in lawmaking which is one among their important capabilities, he mentioned.
“So the legislation is made by some joint secretary in some ministry. It is delivered to Parliament, a Minister will learn out a ready assertion explaining what it’s. Then it is put to a professional forma dialogue after which as a consequence of a whip-driven tyranny, these on the Treasury benches invariably vote for it and people on the opposition benches vote in opposition to it.
“So good lawmaking the place members of Parliament would truly spend time taking a look at finest practices around the globe, researching authorized precedent after which contributing to the proceedings, that has all turn out to be historical past,” Mr. Tewari mentioned.
Requested whether or not the invoice goals to take away the tyranny of the whip and promote good lawmaking, Mr. Tewari mentioned “completely”.
“It is very important contextualise the invoice. From 1950 to 1985, Members of Parliament and members of the state legislatures have been subjected to whips by their respective political events however the whips carried no coercive penalties,” he mentioned.
“In 1967, the ugly specter of Aaya Ram Gaya Ram began when legislators have been crossing the ground with impunity with one legislator in Haryana crossing the ground eight occasions in at some point. The specter of defections turned the bane of Indian democracy. Subsequently, nearly 18 years later, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced the anti-defection legislation because the tenth Schedule to the Structure of India,” he mentioned.
“It has been 30 years, the anti-defection legislation, nonetheless nicely meant it might be, has not been capable of examine the menace of defection. If defections have been a retail exercise within the Sixties, they turned a wholesale exercise by the Nineteen Nineties after the introduction of the anti-defection legislation and subsequently by the 12 months 2000s, particularly after 2014 it has turn out to be a mega mall exercise the place total events are purchased and offered wholesale, lock, inventory and barrel,” Mr. Tewari mentioned.
He asserted that the sort of “whip-driven” tyranny that the tenth schedule has inadvertently ended up introducing shouldn’t be current in some other democracy around the globe.
Noting that Parliament at occasions sits as a jury or decides on motion in opposition to one among its personal, Mr. Tewari requested how can that be subjected to a whip-driven course of.
The assertion of objects and causes of the invoice mentioned that after quarter of a century of the enactment of the tenth Schedule, it wants sure variations and additional strengthening in order to be of better relevance to our democratic course of in the present day.
Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members are allowed to introduce payments on topics on which they suppose the federal government ought to convey a legislation. Barring a couple of circumstances, many of the non-public member payments are withdrawn after the federal government replies on the proposed legal guidelines.
Printed – December 08, 2025 07:34 am IST