It’s for Parliament to rein in partisan Speakers: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it was for Parliament to legislate and provide a timeframe for adjudication of disqualification petitions against legislators by Speakers, who of late have adopted a partisan approach to keep decisions on such pleas pending for long periods to benefit the ruling dispensation.
Dealing with a PIL which sought a direction to Speakers to expeditiously dispose of disqualification petitions, a bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy said, “How can we make a law providing timeframe for Speakers to decide disqualification petitions? It is a matter for Parliament to deliberate and decide.” The petitioner had argued that delayed decisions negated the mandate of the Constitution’s anti-defection provisions.
The Supreme Court has from time to time expressed its displeasure over the inordinate delay on the part of Speakers to decide such petitions. In January 2020, an SC bench headed by Justice R F Nariman had fixed a three-month timeline for the Manipur assembly Speaker to decide a disqualification petition.
On Thursday, petitioner Ranajit Mukherjee told the SC that the actions of Speakers of different states, and their failure to take timely action in the face of recent political defections, were arbitrary.