SHORT-CIRCUITING PARLIAMENT
On September 20, Parliament passed two contentious farm bills—Farmers’ Produce Trade & Commerce (Promotion & Facilitation) Bill and the Farmers’ (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance & Farm Services Bill. The Rajya Sabha cleared both by voice vote; the Lok Sabha had passed them three days earlier. While farmers and Opposition parties protested the ‘antifarmer’ provisions in the bills, the unseemly haste on display in rushing the bills through Parliament, without further reference, discussion or debate, have raised unsettling questions on this government’s commitment to upholding parliamentary democracy.
The business advisory committee of the Rajya Sabha had set aside four hours to debate and pass the bills. Besides seven amendments to the bills, including one to send them to a select committee, the opposition leaders had also moved two statutory resolutions to get the bills disapproved. The debate continued beyond 1 pm, when the House was scheduled to be adjourned in keeping with Covid19 protocol. Opposition leaders demanded the House be adjourned as per schedule and the bills taken up the next day, but the government insisted on continuing the proceedings. “When the House has to extend its sitting beyond the scheduled time, the sense of the House is taken by the chairperson,” says P.D.T. Achary, former secretary general of the Lok Sabha. “If there is no consensus on an extended sitting, the chair normally adjourns the House for the next day.”
The government, in its defence, cites a technicality. “There is no rule,” says a close associate of deputy chairman Harivansh, “that once the bills are moved for debate, voting can be left halfway.” Angry opposition leaders thronged the well of the house, tore up the rulebook, broke mikes and even manhandled a marshal, following which the House was adjourned. When the House met again, the chaos continued and the bills were passed by voice vote.
Eight members were suspended for a week. In protest, Congress and other parties boycotted the House. Congress MP K.C. Venugopal alleged that BJP MP Bhupender Yadav had whispered something in Harivansh’s ear, after which the bills were rushed through. Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien said that Rajya Sabha TV’s telecast of the episode was censored so that people could not see how the bills were rammed through.
Government sources, however, allege that Opposition leaders deliberately created pandemonium to stall the bills. “The deputy chairman announced more than a dozen times that he would allow voting by division if the unruly leaders returned to their seats,” says Yadav. “If they were sure of victory, they should have remained seated and allowed division [of the vote]. When they did not listen, voice vote was the only way. There is no time to waste in a pandemic. There have been multiple instances in the past when bills have been passed by voice vote.”
During a voice vote, the chairman poses a question to the house and then asks members to respond with either an ‘aye’ (yes) or ‘no’. The result is decided on a rough measure of which side is louder. In a voice vote, no record is kept of how many MPs are present. Division, on the other hand, records how each MP has voted on a motion. This ensures no MP can surreptitiously cast his or her vote contrary to their public stand. O’Brien claimed that had there been a division, the government would have lost the vote, as it did not have the support even of its allies. Harsimrat Kaur, leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal, among the BJP’s oldest allies, resigned from the Modi cabinet in protest.
Article 100 of the Constitution mandates that all questions in a sitting of the House be determined through a vote by a majority of the members present. There is no mention of ‘voice vote’, yet it’s a preferred mode of making decisions in Parliament, perhaps under the presumption that since the government has a majority in the House, anything it tables is likely to be passed. But, when a member demands a vote, says Achary, “under no circumstances can the chair ignore the demand and declare the motion passed through voice vote.”
However, the mode of voting is not the only way the BJP government has bypassed the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, where it has weak numbers (86 of 243 members) unlike in the Lok Sabha where it has a brute majority (303 of 540 members). One such practice has been to stamp a bill as “money bill”. Certain bills regulating financial matters listed under Article 110 of the Constitution can be enacted as “money bills”. Once the Lok Sabha Speaker certifies a bill as such, it does not require the assent of the Rajya Sabha to be enacted. This provision was most deviously invoked in 2016, when the Aadhaar Bill was labelled a money bill. Though the Supreme Court, in a split verdict, upheld the constitutionality of the process, many experts have argued that the provisions of the bill were far too expansive and far-reaching to be characterised as a money bill. The dissenting Supreme Court judge even called the abuse of the money bill route to pass the Aadhaar Act a “fraud on the Constitution”. The BJP government also courted controversy when it used the money bill route to amend campaign finance laws and retrospectively validate foreign donations already declared illegal by the Delhi High Court. In 2017, the then finance minister Arun Jaitley introduced 30 pages of amendments to the Finance Bill, less than 48 hours before the legislation was taken up for scrutiny. At least 25 of the 40 amendments introduced in the Finance Act, 2017, were unrelated to government revenue and taxation. Among the many disputed provisions was one to permit unlimited and anonymous corporate donations to political parties through the controversial electoral bonds.
However, the NDA government is not alone in using the money bill route. Data research agency IndiaSpend found that 21 per cent more money bills were passed than ordinary bills between May 2004 and September 2018. The Congress-led UPA was in power between 2004 and 2014.
Another recent instance of parliamentary chicanery was in view when Union home minister Amit Shah moved the bill to abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in the Rajya Sabha first. Had it been moved in the Lok Sabha first, it would have alerted the opposition parties, particularly the Congress, to prepare a counter-strategy and mobilise other parties to oppose the bill in the Rajya Sabha, where a united opposition can still block a bill. By introducing it in the upper house without circulating advance copies of the bill, the government was able to catch the opposition off-guard in a House where it did not have a brute majority. Under the rules, after a bill is introduced in the Rajya Sabha, a motion to consider it can be moved only after supplying copies of the bill to Rajya Sabha members at least two days before the date of discussion. However, under the same rule, the Rajya Sabha chairman can also waive this provision. Shah took advantage of this waiver to take up the J&K Bill for discussion on the same day that it was introduced, leaving the opposition camp stunned and divided. Another criticism against the Modi government is that in the interests of socalled productivity in Parliament, it compromises on the quality of legislation and circumvents parliamentary committees, which might insist on closer scrutiny. According to PRS Legislative Research, while the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha (from 2004 to 2014) had scrutinised 60 per cent and 71 per cent bills, the 16th Lok Sabha scrutinised only 26 per cent of the total bills passed in Parliament. Experts on parliamentary procedures assert that the measure of a legislative institution is not just the amount of work it does but also how it does it. “Making laws is a two-step responsibility,” says Chaksu Roy, head of legislative and civic engagement, PRS Legislative Research. “It requires comprehensive scrutiny by parliamentary committees. This allows Parliament to get into the details of the proposed law and also get valuable public and expert opinion on it. Then comes the debate in Parliament. The MPs layer the debate with context and politics. Jumping these steps or rushing through them could result in the laws not achieving their intended purpose and, in some cases, defeating their public purpose.”
WHILE THE PRECEDING TWO LOK SABHAS DEBATED 60% AND 71% BILLS PASSED, THE 16TH HAS SCRUTINISED ONLY 26% BILLS
When Jyotiraditya Scindia left the Congress for the BJP earlier this year, his friend and Congress leader Sachin Pilot termed his defection as merely “unfortunate”. Scindia, in turn, tweeted in support of Pilot’s rebellion of the past few months, accusing the Congress of ignoring talent. Pilot’s revolt against Ashok Gehlot’s government in Rajasthan ended a bit tamely, though. He will now be campaigning for the Congress in the upcoming byelections in Madhya Pradesh to bring in Gurjar votes—Pilot’s community and one that makes up a substantial voter base in at least half of the 28 seats going to poll. The buzz now is that Pilot and Scindia could soon be butting heads since the GwaliorChambal region is also where Scindia is fighting a do-or-die political battle. A friendly match here might be asking for too much.