GOVT FINDS HOLDING A JOINT SESSION TOO RISKY

The Government is worried over the passage of the controversial land acquisition Bill and other Bills to replace the Ordinances because of a jolt it got on Tuesday when the Opposition forced an amendment on the failure to get back black money in the official motion of thanks to the President for his address to the joint session. What if the Opposition blocks the Bills and the related Ordinances lapse if not passed within six weeks of start of the Parliament session -- April 4 in this case? Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been giving veiled threats to the Opposition to go for a joint session of Parliament if the Bills are blocked, but some of the senior ministers are sceptic because the government will still have only a thin majority in the joint session.

There have been three precedents of the joint sessions summoned and the stalled Bills passed.

The sceptics are particularly worried over the land acquisition bill falling in the joint session because of the thin majority the government enjoys and doubts over support by three of its allies -- Shiv Sena, Akali Dal and Swabhimani Paksha -- as they are already voicing protests.

Shiv Sena has total 23 members in the two Houses, Akali Dal 7 and Swabhimani Paksha 1 in the Lok Sabha. Even if all the NDA allies vote together, the sceptics have advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to take risk as just three or four votes rejected and the fall of a Bill would amount to defeat of the government. The government needs to cross the halfway mark of 394 MPs since the combined strength of the two Houses is 786 (543 in Lok Sabha and 243 in Rajya Sabha). With all allies remaining together, the government has just three more votes than the halfway mark as it has a total of 397 MPs, i.e. 336 in Lok Sabha and 61 in Rajya Sabha.

The joint session is a rare lawenacting instrument used rarely, last time by the Vajpayee-led NDA government on March 26, 2002 to get the contentious Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) passed. The other two laws enacted by the joint session were Dowry Prohibition Bill on May 9, 1961 and Banking Service Commission Repeal Bill on May 16, 1978.

The President is empowered under Article 108 of the Constitution to summon a joint session of Parliament on the advice of the government "for the purpose of deliberating and voting on the Bill". There are, however, three caveats: If a Bill passed by one House but rejected by other, or if disagreement between the two Houses on amendments to the Bill, or when more than six months have lapsed after the date of receipt of the Bill by the other House without passing it.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has suggested that the third caveat should be explored by calling a joint session to push for the women's reservation bill that was passed by the Rajya Sabha back on March 9, 2010 and pending with the Lok Sabha, not for just more than six months but for five years, as it will definitely break the Opposition unity and pave way for passing the Bills blocked in the Rajya Sabha.

Jawaharlal Nehru had absolute majority in both the Houses and yet he had to go for a two-day joint session on May 6 and 9 in 1961 on the differences on the Dowry Prohibition Bill in the two Houses. While the Rajya Sabha passed it to ban both "direct and indirect payments" as dowry, the Lok Sabha deleted "indirect payments" terming it as "oppressive."

In 1978, the Congress-dominated Rajya Sabha rejected a Bill brought by the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai to repeal a centralised Banking Service Commission set up on the lines of UPSC by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.

The joint sitting passed the repeal Bill on May 16, 1978.

The same situation arose in 2002 when the Vajpayee government wanted to pass POTA, but it did not have the numbers in the Rajya Sabha and so the recourse was taken to the joint session to pass the law on March 26, 2002.