On 10 July 2013, a two-judge bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya struck down Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 — the provision that had given sitting MPs and MLAs three months from conviction to appeal before facing disqualification. The judgment held that Parliament had no constitutional competence to enact the exception: Articles 102(1)(e) and 191(1)(e) of the Constitution operate as immediate disqualifications on conviction. A digest of the holding, the constitutional reasoning, and the political-historical consequences.