Seeking to drop anti-defection law, no-confidence motion, India's Law Commission bats for simultaneous polls

By Our Representative
In a surprise move, the Law Commission of India is all set to recommend that “no-confidence motion” against a government should be replaced with what it calls “constructive vote of no-confidence”, both in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The recommendation finds its way in the draft working paper, “Simultaneous Elections – Constitutional and Legal Perspectives”, released recently.
In yet another controversial recommendation, the Commission wants Parliament and State Assemblies to drop the “rigour” of the anti-defection law, at least if there is a hung Parliament or Assembly. It adds, this could be done by amending the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
At the same time, he commission insists, the Prime Minister and state chief ministers should be elected in the same way as the Lok Sabha or assembly speaker is, and the requirement that leader of the majority party should be elected to leader the country or state should be dropped.
It says, “Analogous to the election of Speaker of the House of People by consensus, Leader of the majority party, i.e., the Prime Minister/Chief Minister may be elected to lead the Lok Sabha/Assembly, by the full House like electing the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. This will potentially provide stability to the government and in turn to the Lok Sabha/Assembly.”
Prepared following the commission’s meeting of April 17, 2018, the commission says, it was “unanimously resolved that before finalising and forwarding its report to the Government of India” it was necessary to take opinion of “all the stakeholders, including constitutional experts, academia, political parties, bureaucrats, students, etc.”
Pointing out that simultaneous elections are held “in countries like South Africa, Sweden, Belgium”, etc., the draft paper says, India’s Constitution “does not mention about a confidence motion or a no-confidence motion.”
It believes, “An alternative to tide over the premature dissolution of the House of People could be that the members, while moving a no-confidence motion, may also put forward an option for forming an alternative government. This could hold good for Lok Sabha as well as State Assemblies. This system is prevalent in Germany.”
To avoid the situation of Hung Parliament/Assembly, which often leads to a “stalemate”, the commission believes, “To avoid the premature dissolution of the House/State Assembly and to advance the idea of simultaneous elections, the Members of the House may sit together and decide on the leader of the House can form a Government.”
It adds, “This can be made workable if an exception to the applicability of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution is carved out”, wondering, “Can the rigour of Schedule X to the Constitution (anti-defection law) be diluted only for formation of a stable Government?”
To make things easier, the commission says, “Statutory limit of six months for the issuance of notification of general elections be appropriately extended by way of amendments to sections 14 and 15 of the 1951 Act”, adding, “This would provide the flexibility required to position States either in one group or the other, as one time measure.”
The commission believes, “synchronisation of the elections”, already examined by the Standing Committee of Parliament, suggests that in the first phase, elections to the State Legislatures which are scheduled to go for polls synchronous with Lok Sabha, in 2019…”
Insisting that “certain states which are having scheduled elections in near future) can be held together”, the commission says, “The rest of the states (those states which will be going to elections in proximity with Lok Sabha elections of 2024) can be synchronised with 2024 general elections, appropriately extending the terms of the respective Assemblies.”
“Another option”, says the commission, is to hold “the General Elections 2019 along with the elections to Assemblies of the formatter group of States, and after 30 months, hold elections with the latter group of States.” “Thereafter”, it adds, “Elections could be held every two-and-a-half years.”

Comments

India’s climate tech ecosystem in dire need of both early, growth-stage funding: Report

By Our Representative India’s climate tech ecosystem, which boasts over 800 startups, is in dire need of both early and growth-stage funding to leverage its full potential, according to a report by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (Ventures) and MUFG Bank , Japan. Despite a robust initial funding landscape, with approximately two-thirds of climate tech startups receiving seed capital, growth-stage investments remain critically lacking.

Modi govt distancing from Adanis? MoEFCC 'defers' 1500 MW project in Western Ghats

By Rajiv Shah Is the Narendra Modi government, in its third but what would appear to be a weaker avatar, seeking to show that it would keep a distance, albeit temporarily, from its most favorite business house, the Adanis? It would seem so if the latest move of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) latest to "defer" the Adani Energy’s application for 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pump Storage Project is any indication.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded reaction in the form of a link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Bayer's business model: 'Monopoly control over chemicals, seeds'

By Bharat Dogra* The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has rendered a great public service by very recently publishing a report titled ‘Bayer’s Toxic Trails’ which reveals how the German agrochemical giant Bayer has been lobbying hard to promote glyphosate and GMOs, or trying to “capture public policy to pursue its private interests.” This report, written by Joao Camargo and Hans Van Scharen, follows Bayer’s toxic trail as “it maintains monopolistic control of the seed and pesticides markets, fights off regulatory challenges to its toxic products, tries to limit legal liability, and exercises political influence.”

105,000 sign protest petition, allege Nestlé’s 'double standard' over added sugar in baby food

By Kritischer Konsum* 105,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop adding sugar to its baby food products marketed in lower-income countries. It was handed over today at the multinational’s headquarters in Vevey, where the NGOs Public Eye, IBFAN and EKO dumped the symbolic equivalent of 10 million sugar cubes, representing the added sugar consumed each day by babies fed with Cerelac cereals. In Switzerland, such products are sold with no added sugar. The leading baby food corporation must put an end to this harmful double standard.

UNEP report on how climate crisis is impacting displacement, global conflicts, declining health

By Shankar Sharma* A recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), titled "A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing," warrants urgent attention from our country’s developmental perspective. The findings, detailed in the report, should be a source of significant concern not only globally but especially for our nation, which has a vast population and limited natural resources.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah* The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.

75 years of revolution: How China moved away from ideals of struggle for human liberation

By Harsh Thakor* On October 1st, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, a pivotal moment in the struggle for human liberation. From 1949 to 1976, China achieved remarkable social equality and revolutionary democracy, outpacing other developing nations in literacy, health care, agricultural output, and industrial production.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Search This Blog