With its meeting now scheduled for May 5, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday signaled a political escalation in the fallout from the Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha defections, announcing that he would head to Rashtrapati Bhavan with all party council members to meet Draupadi Murmu. While the President’s office has granted him a date to meet her privately, Mann, in an
But at the heart of the proposed meeting lies a demand that does not fit comfortably into India’s constitutional framework: the “recall” of seven Rajya Sabha members who have recently switched sides. Although this request has political resonance, it conflicts with clear constitutional restrictions because there is no provision in India that allows a member of Parliament to be summoned.
Once elected, a Member of Parliament for the Rajya Sabha holds office for a fixed term of six years under Article 83, after being elected by the state legislators under Article 80. This term can be prematurely curtailed only by resignation, disqualification or other strictly defined constitutional means. The idea that a member of Parliament can be “removed” due to political dissatisfaction, or even because of a change in the party’s fortunes, finds no place in the constitutional text.
This makes Mann’s outreach to the president more of a political intervention than a legal one. The Constitution does not grant the President any authority to terminate or reconsider the membership of representatives on this basis. Matters of disqualification fall squarely under the purview of the Speaker of the House – in this case, the Speaker of the Rajya Sabha, who is subject to judicial review. Even when the President does play a role in matters of disqualification under Articles 102 and 103, it is exercised on the binding advice of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and within a tightly constrained legal framework.
Section 102 sets out the grounds on which a Member of Parliament can be disqualified, such as holding a lucrative office, being of unsound mind, being an undischarged insolvent, not being a citizen of India, or incurring disqualification under any law made by Parliament (including laws such as the Representation of the People Act). Article 103, in turn, stipulates procedures for deciding such matters. If any doubt arises as to whether a Member of Parliament has been disqualified under Article 102, the matter is referred to the President, who is constitutionally bound to seek the opinion of the Election Commission of India and decide the matter in accordance with that opinion. In fact, the President does not exercise independent discretion but acts on the binding advice of the Election Commission of India in a quasi-judicial process. The demand for “recall” lies entirely outside this scheme.
The real legal dispute, if there is one, lies elsewhere – within the anti-defection law in the Tenth Schedule. The seven lawmakers, led by Raghav Chadha, invoked the “merger” exception, which protects lawmakers from disqualification if at least two-thirds of a legislature party agrees to merge with another party. This claim has already been accepted by the Rajya Sabha Chairman, but remains open to challenge.
As recent constitutional jurisprudence has emphasized, especially the Supreme Court judgment in Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra (2023), a legislative party cannot act independently of the political party itself, raising serious questions as to whether numerical strength alone can legitimize a merger. These are issues that may ultimately require a judicial decision, not executive intervention.
It is difficult to ignore the political irony of the current situation. Just months before leading the defection, Chadha had argued in Parliament for the “legal right of recall”, arguing that voters should not be bound to underperforming representatives for an entire term. He also sought to tighten the anti-defection law by raising the merger threshold from two-thirds to three-quarters. Oddly enough, this is a change which, had it been passed, might have prevented the very schism he later led. Neither proposal was adopted, leaving the current framework intact and sufficiently lenient to enable transformation.
Comparative constitutional practice provides little support for Mann’s claim. While subpoena mechanisms exist in some jurisdictions, including Taiwan, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador, they are explicitly codified and largely limited to local or subnational offices. Parliamentary systems like India have deliberately avoided such provisions, preferring stability of tenure over mid-term political coups. The absence of a recall mechanism reflects a deliberate constitutional choice, not an oversight.
In light of this, Mann’s proposed meeting with the President appears not to be an attempt to invoke a viable constitutional remedy, but rather an attempt to paint the defections as a betrayal of the public mandate, especially in Punjab, where the political impact is most acute since the state goes to the polls next year. By taking the council members to Rashtrapati Bhavan, even symbolically, the Prime Minister is signaling a collective political grievance rather than pursuing a legally sustainable path.
Ultimately, this event highlights a deeper tension within India’s constitutional design. While the anti-defection law seeks to curb opportunistic political transitions, it does so within a framework that still allows for significant maneuvering through the merger exception. At the same time, the Constitution does not provide a direct mechanism for voters or parties to regain the mandate once representatives are elected. Until this balance is reconsidered through legislative or constitutional change, demands such as “impeachment” can remain powerful political rhetoric but constitutionally hollow.
