Constitutional Law & Political Parties
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND POLITICAL PARTIES
- Kajal Jain
The farmers of Indian constitution by taking ideas from various constitutions of the world tried to draft a constitution which is free from various loopholes and challenges. But the fact can not be denied that Indian constitution suffers from various challenges and loopholes many of which has not been resolved. The challenges of Indian constitution have to be seen from the point of current generation and taking into consideration the future changes the perspective of year 1950s can no longer be taken as a standard to recognize the challenges of Indian constitution.
The challenges of Indian constitution are the challenge of people and for people which cannot be overseen as curbing these challenges will bring in completeness in the Indian constitution. The Indian constitution faces many challenges such as the special status given to various state ,Philosophy of ahimsa but what a state shall do when the nation is facing violence and how government should deal with it but here majorly we will be disusing about how Indian constitution is silent about political parties and how does this silence amounts to be a challenge.
After the independence and partition of India many social parties converted themselves into political parties and the dominance on Indian national congress remain in society. While drafting the Indian constitution the role and duties of other existing political parties were not given much of attention and the constitution became silent on the regulation of these political parties. With growth and growing dominance of other political parties the need for such regulation was recognised. it was perhaps the less imaginative capacity of the constitutional framers to recognize the rise of other political party.
India follows a multi party system where by dividing the party system into two
• National political parties
• Regional political parties
The Representative of the People Act 1951 provides for certain rules and regulation to regulate the registration of these political parties but there are no expressed provisions in the constitution to govern and regulate the working of these political parties. The Act is also silent about the cancellation of the registration of these political parties it provides only in case of registration obtain from fraud or when the party is declared to be illegal by the central government the registration of the political parties can be cancelled. There bare no provisions for regulating the internal working of these parties and their management leading to lack of transparency.
The election commission of India the election governing body of India requires the member of these political parties to disclose many information but no specific law has been made to make the claims of election commission even more strong. The election commission ask for information like the organisational structure of the political party, the power and function of its organs, its procedure to appoint the office bearers of the political party. All these information does not serve any material help to the general public for the better understanding of there political leaders party working system.
When such a big democracy like India is led by these political organisations the need to know their working and as well as transparency in there working is required. When people are assigned with power with no transparency the chances of being corrupt and misusing such huge power comes into question. The political parties get huge funding during the time of election there are some regulation governing these funding but noclearprovisions for bringing in a concrete transparency has been made. When people invest so much interest on such political parties need for transparency arises. The right to information act also does not provides for the disclosure of information by these political party on strong basis rather the interest of the political parties has been protected by these crucial Acts. the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and RTI activist Mr. Subhash Chandra Agrawal filled a PIL to bring in the political parties under the ambit of public authorities and appealed to cover them under the right to information act 2005 eventually it was led that the RTI Act does not have enough power to cover political parties under its ambit .
Many a times the question of instability of these coalition government brings the working of these political parties in question and it is very often seen that the internal agendas of these political parties and personal welfare of the members of these political parties brings such instability in the government of the state.
In the year 1985 via amendment tenth schedule was inserted to Indian constitution to provide for the disqualification of elected members for defection. This was the first ever time the political party and its member were bought under the light of the constitution. After this instance the role and impact of political party was recognised and it was realized that how deeply these party may not be in power can affect the political stability and working of the Indian politics and change the dynamics of the Indian politics.
There are no expressed provisions for constitution of any authority who can act as an authority to resolve the political dispute of parties leading to instability whenever such dispute arises the parties has to refer their cases to supreme court making it a long and tedious process to resolve dispute of such important nature
The Finance Act 2017 had removed all the limits put on political parties to accept donation from political parties which was earlier restricted to 7.5 percent of the companies average net profit for preceding three financial years by the provisions of article 182 of the companies act 2013 .when such cap is removed the companies invest a lot of money by a way donation in these political party and act as a source of finance to these parties which may lead to the biasness of the political party in power to favour the working of those company holding the major amount of donation and acting as the chief financer
The role of political parties in the Indian political system cannot be denied and the interest vested on them by the people cannot be oversee. But the Indian constitution has overseen the importance of such political parties in shaping the structure of the politics and giving birth to various other problems such as lack of transparency, no stabilised rules governing such political parties. Misuse of funds and donation so collected. The election commission from time to time has demanded for a more strong and transparent laws to regulate these political parties but so far these appeals are unheard.
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References :-
1. The challenges in constitutional law, The Indian Journal of constitutional & Administrative law
2. ADR india, judgements and PILS
3. Times of India, limit donation of political parties
