Most of you must have read that the 16th Lok Sabha may be devoid of the Leader of the Opposition. Many prominent newspapers and websites have incorrectly stated that there is a provision in the Constitution of India that requires that the main opposition party can be recognised so only if it holds at least one-tenth of the strength of the House.
This is
absolutely incorrect as there is no provision in the Constitution that talks
about “leader of the opposition”. However, in the Westminster form of
government that we have, the leader of the opposition is an important
functionary of the House of the people.
Technically he
is only the leader for the time being of the Principal Opposition Party[1]. There may be several
parties in opposition, but the Opposition basically means the second chief
party temporarily in a minority, with leaders experienced in office, who
are ready when the time arises, to form an alternative government. This
affords a guarantee that its criticism will be directed by a consistent policy
and conducted with responsibility-not in spirit calculated to ruin the game for
the sake of the prize[2].
Section 2 of The
Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977”,
defines the Leader of the Opposition, in relation to either House of
Parliament, as “member of the Council of States or the House of the People,
as the case may be, who is, for the time being, the Leader in that House of
the party in opposition to the Government having the greatest numerical
strength and recognised as such by the Chairman of the Council of States or the
Speaker of the House of the People, as the case may be”.
The explanation
to this states that “Where there are two or more parties in opposition to
the Government, in the Council of States or In the House of the People having
the same numerical strength, the Chairman of the Council of States or the
Speaker of the House of the people, as the case may be, shall, having regard to
the status of the parties, recognise any one of the Leaders of such parties as
the Leader of the Opposition for the purposes of this section and such
recognition shall be final and conclusive”.
According to
directions issued by the Presiding Officers of both the Houses, the minimum
numerical strength required for recognition as a Parliamentary Party is one
tenth of the total membership of the House.
Thus, the chief opposition
party can be recognized as a Party in the house of the people by the Speaker
only if it has a minimum of one tenth of the total membership of the house.
Here is the catch. We observe that, according to section 2 mentioned above, in
order to be a Leader of the Opposition, the party In opposition to which the
leader of the opposition belongs must have the greatest numerical strength and
as per the directives of the Presiding Officers, this greatest numerical
strength must be at least one tenth membership of the house.
Hence, a minimum
of 54 seats would be needed by the principal opposition party to put forth a
leader of the Opposition that could be recognized by the Presiding Officer.
It will be
interesting to watch whether there will be a leader of the opposition or not in
the 16th Lok Sabha as no party except BJP has been able to cross the
threshold of 54 members.
In my subsequent
posts, I will explain the genesis of this one-tenth Rule, the Constituent Assembly
Debates in this respect and my opinion on this issue.
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