On 21 January 2020 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that a Speaker acting as a Tribunal under the Tenth Schedule must decide a disqualification petition within a reasonable period — ordinarily about three months absent exceptional circumstances — and that courts may issue a mandamus directing the Speaker to decide within a fixed time. The Bench also recorded serious reservations about vesting a quasi-judicial defection power in a Speaker who belongs to a political party, and urged Parliament to consider a permanent independent tribunal. This editorial reads the reasonable-period rule, the mandamus architecture, and the reform recommendation.