18 MLAs in Tamil Nadu were disqualified by the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker.
What was the reason?
The disqualified legislators belong to a faction of the AIADMK that opposes to the ruling dispensation.
They gave a memorandum to the Governor expressing lack of confidence in the present Chief Minister.
The Speaker interpreted it as amounting to “voluntarily giving up” their party membership.
What was the hidden agenda?
It is seen as a partisan decision aimed at securing a majority, after a rebellion within its party reduced it to a minority.
It reduced the total membership of the House from 233 to 215 and, thereby, the majority threshold from 117 to 108.
The Speaker’s ruling comes at a time when there is an increasingly indefensible reluctance on the part of the Governor to order a floor test.
Can there be a judicial review?
Tenth Schedule of the Constitution prescribes two conditions under which a member of a political party may be disqualified –
voluntarily giving up their membership
when a whip is disobeyed
The Speaker’s decision under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution is subject to judicial review.
If it is challenged, the courts will have to decide whether legislators withdrawing support to their own party’s government amounts to voluntarily giving up their membership.
In Balchandra L. Jarkiholi & Others v. B.S. Yeddyurappa (2011), the Supreme Court, in similar circumstances, quashed the disqualification of 11 MLAs in Karnataka.
While such legal and constitutional questions may be decided judicially, political morality has suffered a blow in the State.
