Kolkata: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday said it is up to the political parties to discuss and decide on whether to amend the anti-defection law.
Birla was responding to a question on a committee of presiding officers set up by him for reviewing the constitutional and procedural framework governing the disqualification of legislators under the anti-defection law.
It is up to the political parties to discuss and decide on the anti-defection law, the Lok Sabha speaker told reporters on the sidelines of an event.
He also noted that the issue was discussed at the national conference of presiding officers of various state legislatures in the past.
The four-member panel, headed by Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, was constituted in January 2020 to examine issues relating to the powers of presiding officers under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution and the rules framed under it.
The committee has reviewed the constitutional and procedural framework governing the disqualification of legislators under the anti-defection law, officials said.
The deliberations were held during the second meeting of the Committee of Presiding Officers in Odisha's Puri.
Karnataka Assembly Speaker U T Khader, Nagaland's Sharingain Longkumer and Odisha's Surama Padhi are the other members of the panel.
Senior Lok Sabha officials, secretaries of various state assemblies, constitutional experts and Odisha's Advocate General Pitambar Acharya were present at the meeting.
The remarks come against the backdrop of defections in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Shiv Sena (UBT).
Twenty MPs have broken away from the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and joined the little-known Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), a registered unrecognised political party headquartered in West Bengal's Howrah, and sought separate seating arrangements in the Lok Sabha.
The rebels have also expressed their allegiance to the Narendra Modi government and voiced their desire to join the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Altogether, 29 MPs got elected to the Lok Sabha on TMC tickets in the 2024 general election. One TMC MP has since died, and the seat remains vacant.
In the case of the Shiv Sena (UBT), a total of nine MPs got elected on the party's tickets, of whom six have since joined the rival Shiv Sena faction headed by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Both the TMC and the Shiv Sena (UBT) have argued before the Speaker that their rebel MPs should be disqualified as the defections fall under the anti-defection law.
The two parties have contended that the anti-defection law does not apply only if two-thirds of the members walk away, not a group of lawmakers.
