Delays by presiding officers in deciding disqualification petitions weaken the Tenth Schedule. Discuss in light of judicial pronouncements.

The Tenth Schedule (52nd Amendment, 1985) makes the Speaker or Chairman the deciding authority on defection petitions under Paragraph 6. However, it sets no time limit for the decision [3]. Because of this gap, a presiding officer can simply not decide a petition. Delay then becomes a quiet way to protect defectors.

How delay weakens the law

• Defectors keep their seats and votes: while a petition is pending, members stay in the House for much of its term. Some have even become ministers while still formally members of their original party [3].
• State examples: in Manipur, the Speaker took no decision on several petitions against a minister who switched parties. In Andhra Pradesh, petitions against defecting MLAs went unanswered [3].
• Doubts about neutrality: the Speaker usually comes from the ruling side, so inaction looks partisan. The recent petitions against 20 MPs who broke away from the Trinamool Congress have put this question before the Lok Sabha Speaker too [4].

Judicial pronouncements

• Kihoto Hollohan (1992): the Court upheld the Speaker's role as a tribunal, and its decisions open to judicial review. However, courts were not to step in before the Speaker gives a final order [1][3]. This left room for indefinite delay.
• Keisham Meghachandra Singh (2020): the Court held that petitions must be decided within a reasonable time, with three months from filing as the outer limit unless there are exceptional reasons. Relying on Rajendra Singh Rana (2007), it held that a Speaker's failure to act can itself be reviewed by courts. It gave the Manipur Speaker four weeks to decide [2].
• Independent tribunal: the same bench urged Parliament to amend the Constitution and create a permanent tribunal headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or High Court Chief Justice [2].

Limits of judicial correction

• Courts can only set deadlines case by case. The lack of a time limit in the Schedule itself remains [3].
• The Law Commission (2015) recommended that the President or Governor decide these cases on the Election Commission's advice [3]. No such change has been made.

Delay therefore defeats the Tenth Schedule's purpose without breaking its text. The way forward is to write the Keisham three-month limit into the Constitution and move adjudication to an independent tribunal. That would protect the people's mandate and the neutrality of the presiding officer, as the Constitution intends.