The political developments in Maharashtra throw up troubling questions about how the political class is emasculating the anti-defection law which was described by the Supreme Court of India as “constitutional correctives against a legislatively perceived political evil of unprincipled defections induced by the lure of office and monitory inducements”. Almost with the farsight of a clairvoyant, the Supreme Court drew the attention of citizens to the very danger of subversion of democracy by unprincipled defection.
The ongoing developments in Maharashtra have once again brought before the country the reality of what the Supreme Court also described as the political evil of unprincipled defection. But the greatest irony is that the order of the Supreme Court, on June 27, on petitions from the dissidents in the Shiv Sena, gives undue advantage to the dissident legislators. The Court has granted them a longer time to submit replies than the rules mandate. This order is going to set in motion certain political developments which will resurrect in a big way what the Supreme Court characterised as political evil; it was to prevent this that the anti-defection law was enacted in 1985.
