New Delhi: Congress MP Manish Tewari has introduced a private member’s bill in Lok Sabha that seeks to allow parliamentarians to take an independent line in voting on bills and motions other than those affecting the government’s stability in a bid to free them from whip-driven tyranny and promote good lawmaking.
Tewari, who introduced the bill last Friday to amend the Anti-Defection Law, said his proposed legislation seeks to flag who has primacy in a democracy – the elector who stands in the sun for hours to elect his or her representative or the political party whose whip the representative becomes the helot of.
The bill, introduced by Tewari for the third time in Lok Sabha after 2010 and 2021, seeks to give parliamentarians the freedom to toe an independent line in voting on bills and motions other than a confidence motion, no-confidence motion, adjournment motion, money bills and financial matters that could affect the stability of a government.
This bill seeks to return conscience, constituency and common sense to the echelons of the legislature so that an elected representative actually functions as the representative of the people who elected him and not as an instrument of a whip issued by his party, transforming lawmakers into mere lobotomised numbers and dogmatic cyphers responding to a division bell, he told PTI.
The statement of objects and reasons of the bill state that it proposes to amend the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution with a view to provide for the following – a member shall incur loss of his membership only when he votes or abstains from voting in the House with regard to a confidence motion, no-confidence motion, adjournment motion, money bill or financial matters, contrary to any direction issued in this behalf by the party to which he belongs to, and in no other case.
The Chairman or the Speaker of a House shall make an announcement in the House regarding any direction issued by a political party in respect of the aforesaid motions, bill or financial matters, as soon as possible, after such direction has been communicated to him by that political party, the statement of objects and reasons of the bill said.
While making such an announcement, the Chairman or the Speaker of House shall also specifically inform the members that the defiance of the direction issued by a political party by any member shall result in automatic cessation of his membership; and a member shall have the right to appeal against cessation of his membership to the Chairman or the Speaker, as the case may be, within a period of fifteen days from the date of such cessation and the appeal shall be disposed of within a period of sixty days from the date of its receipt by the Chairman or the Speaker of a House, it said.
Speaking about the bill, Tewari said it seeks to achieve twin objectives – the stability of the government is not impacted, and parliamentarians and legislators exercise legislative choice.
What is happening is that when Parliament assembles at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, for government business, there is at times not even a quorum in the House. And in fact, there is an unspoken agreement between the treasury benches and the opposition not to raise the quorum issue so that if at all the House is functioning and it is not disrupted, it can continue, the Congress MP from Chandigarh said.
The reason for this is that parliamentarians do not see a role for themselves in lawmaking, which is one of their essential functions, he said.
So the law is made by a joint secretary in some ministry. It is brought to Parliament, and a minister will read out a prepared statement explaining what it is. Then it’s put to a pro forma discussion, and then, as a consequence of a whip-driven tyranny, those on the Treasury benches invariably vote for it, and those on the opposition benches vote against it.
So good lawmaking, where members of Parliament would actually spend time looking at best practices around the world, researching legal precedent and then contributing to the proceedings, that has all become history, Tewari said.
Asked whether the bill aims to remove the tyranny of the whip and promote good lawmaking, Tewari said Absolutely.
It is important to contextualise the bill. From 1950 to 1985, Members of Parliament and members of the state legislatures were subjected to whips by their respective political parties, but the whips carried no coercive consequences, he said.
In 1967, the ugly spectre of Aaya Ram Gaya Ram started when legislators were crossing the floor with impunity, with one legislator in Haryana crossing the floor eight times in one day. The spectre of defections became the bane of Indian democracy. Subsequently, almost 18 years later, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi brought the anti-defection law as the 10th Schedule to the Constitution of India, he said.
It has been 30 years, and the anti-defection law, however well-intended it may be, has not been able to check the menace of defection. If defections were a retail activity in the 1960s, they became a wholesale activity by the 1990s after the introduction of the anti-defection law and subsequently by the year 2000s, especially after 2014, it has become a mega mall activity where entire parties are bought and sold wholesale, lock, stock and barrel, Tewari said.
He asserted that the kind of whip-driven tyranny that the 10th schedule has inadvertently ended up introducing is not present in any other democracy around the world.
Noting that Parliament at times sits as a jury or decides on action against one of its own, Tewari asked how that could be subjected to a whip-driven process.
The statement of objects and reasons of the bill said that after a quarter of a century of the enactment of the 10th Schedule, it needs certain adaptations and further strengthening so as to be of greater relevance to our democratic process today.
Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members are allowed to introduce bills on subjects on which they think the government should bring a law. Barring a few cases, most of the private member bills are withdrawn after the government replies to the proposed laws.
