Cavalier and clumsy

There is little interest in nitty-gritty either among politicians or in the media about parliamentary procedures. The NDA government has been riding roughshod over the procedures and conventions of Parliament in its bid to be seen as a government that means business and wants to get things done quickly. The Modi government is indeed a government in a hurry and it would not like to get bogged down by procedural technicalities. This seems to result in utter clumsiness on the part of the government when it comes to handling the legislative business in Parliament.

This is exemplified in the manner in which the government has gone about pushing its amendments to the land bill. It promulgated an ordinance on December 30, 2014 which added amendments to the land bill as passed by the previous UPA government in 2013. Government pushed the lugubriously titled, “Right To Fair Compensation in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015”, through the Lok Sabha on March 10.The Bill had to go to the Rajya Sabha. It became clear that the BJP did not command the figures required to pass the bill in the Upper House. So, when Parliament went into recession on March 20, the Rajya Sabha was prorogued and the government re-promulgated the ordinance on April 3, 2015.

When the Lok Sabha reconvened on April 20, the government was required to place the April 3 ordinance before the House and it did. The government brought the “Right To Fair Compensation in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Second Bill, 2015” on May 12. It was then referred to the Joint Committee of the Houses of Parliament.

It is quite apparent that this government has been playing ducks and drakes with the serious business of making laws. The BJP can always say that the Congress governments too had indulged in similar acrobatics in the past and that they are not the only ones to bend and stretch the rules. But it does not justify the ways of the government, whether it be that of BJP or of the Congress. It is true that procedures are a means to an end and one should not make a fetish of them. At the same time it would be dangerous to give a go by to procedures whenever the opportunity arises to do so.

Logically, a bill that has been passed in Lok Sabha goes to Rajya Sabha. If the Rajya Sabha amends the bill as passed by Lok Sabha, then it comes back to the Lower House and the Lower House will have to either adopt or reject the amendments proposed by the other House. The land bill passed by the Lok Sabha was not introduced in the Rajya Sabha when the government decided to move another land bill in the Lok Sabha and then agreed to refer it to the Joint Committee.

Why did the government indulge in this apparently meaningless act of repetition? It appears that the government wanted the bill to originate in the Lok Sabha where it enjoys a clear majority, and refer it to a joint committee which would include members from both Houses. There will be 20 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha in the joint committee. The BJP and its allies will be in a majority in the committee because of the NDA's overwhelming majority in Lok Sabha. The membership is in proportion to the strength of each party in the House. This would not have been possible if the land bill had gone to the Rajya Sabha and the Opposition in the Upper House had insisted on referring the bill to the Select Committee as it has happened in the case of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill.

There seems to be enough ambiguity in Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha to allow this sleight of hand by the government with regard to the land bill. Rule 110 says that “at any stage of the Bill” the minister in-charge of the bill may “move for leave to withdraw the Bill” on the grounds that the government is dropping the Bill or it wants to bring in a new Bill. This is possible even after the Bill has been referred to a Select Committee or a Joint Committee. So, there is a provision for withdrawal of the Bill but the government has to go through the necessary procedure. But the government did not choose this option because the Lok Sabha had already passed the land bill.

Rule 112 (2) introduces a fresh ambiguity into the matter. It says, “A Bill pending before the House shall also be removed from the Register of Bills.. in case a Bill substantially identical is passed by the House or the Bill is withdrawn according to Rule 110.” In the explanation of the Rule, the definition of “pending Bill” is offered. It includes a Bill which has been referred to Rajya Sabha or a Bill which has been returned by the President. It implies that a Bill can be withdrawn in the Lok Sabha even after it has been passed in the House. 

In MN Kaul and SL Shakdher’s Practice and Procedure of Parliament (Editor: PDT Achary; Sixth Edition; 2009), the matter with regard to a Bill being re-introduced is explained but with a twist in the tail. First, it says “A Bill cannot be introduced if it is substantially identical with another Bill on which the House has given a decision in the same session.” Second, it says, “Bills dealing with the same subject but different in substance may, however, be allowed to be introduced during the same session.” Third, the most interesting point in the present context, it says, “Normally, a Bill before the House cannot be withdrawn to facilitate the Government to re-introduce the same Bill without any change in the same session.” The only exception to this rule was in 1969 when the Speaker allowed the relaxation of this convention, and he made it clear that it should not be cited as a precedent.

Despite the open-ended Rule Book and the conventions of parliamentary practice as spelled out by Kaul and Shakdher, there is no justification for the BJP to have indulged in the rickery of introducing the land bill a second time in the Lok Sabha after the Lower House had passed it barely two months earlier. It is unfortunate that Members of Parliament and constitutional experts have not rapped the Modi government on its knuckles for this act of truancy.

The author is consulting editor with dna