Because the assembly has substantial tenure remaining, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held that petitions under the anti-defection law must be decided expeditiously, ruling that high courts should not decline to issue directions to assembly speakers merely.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court in June this year declined to direct the speaker to expedite the proceedings, citing the absence of extraordinary circumstances and the fact that the assembly still had two years left in its tenure. A bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, was hearing a petition filed by leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh assembly Umang Singhar, complaining that a petition seeking Sapre’s disqualification had been pending before the speaker since June 2024.
Directing the Madhya Pradesh assembly speaker to decide a disqualification petition against Congress MLA Nirmala Sapre within two months, the court observed that even where a high court finds no urgency in a disqualification matter, issues arising under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution must be dealt with promptly in accordance with the court’s earlier judgments.
In the Padi Kaushik Reddy judgment, the top court directed the Telangana speaker to decide disqualification petitions against 10 MLAs within three months, emphasising that speakers cannot allow anti-defection proceedings to languish and must conclude them within a reasonable, time-bound period. Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly (2021), the court held that three months should ordinarily be the outer limit for deciding disqualification petitions under the Tenth Schedule, except in exceptional circumstances. In Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. In the present matter, the bench initially proposed a three-month deadline for the MP assembly speaker to decide the pending petition. However, after senior advocate Vivek Tankha, appearing for Singhar, requested that the period be reduced to two months, the court modified its direction accordingly. The speaker had also taken up the disqualification proceedings and reserved the matter for orders, but no decision had followed.
“Even in a case where the court finds that there is no urgency, issues like these should be dealt with expeditiously,” the Supreme Court held, adding that petitions under the Tenth Schedule were expected to be decided promptly in keeping with its judgments in Padi Kaushik Reddy Vs State of Telangana (2025) and Keisham Meghachandra Singh Vs Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly (2021). Tankha told the court that the matter had been kept for orders before the high court, following which notice was issued.
