The political deadlock on the repealing of farm laws and the Pegasus phone-hacking controversy has washed out the first two weeks of the monsoon session. Slogan-shouting has become the background sound for parliamentary debate, and the Parliament television crew are locked in a contest of camera ang...
Parliament did not pass any laws in the first week of the ongoing monsoon session. Continuous slogan-shouting in the two houses on farm laws and the Pegasus hacking controversy washed out the first four days of the 19-day monsoon session of Parliament. The expectation was that in the second week, po...
One of the earliest walkouts occurred more than a century ago in the Bombay Legislative Council. In 1901, when the British administration was passing a law harmful to farmers’ interests, Indian members of the council such as Pherozeshah Mehta and Gopal Krishna Gokhale vehemently opposed the la...
The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly has been without a Speaker for most of this year. Last week, it concluded its two-day Monsoon Session without electing a Speaker. The previous Speaker was Nana Patole of the Congress, elected to the post in 2019 following the Assembly elections. Since Patole&rs...
Five years have passed since the enactment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC). The code provides for time-bound resolution of insolvency among companies and individuals.
The provisions relating to individual insolvency resolution, however, have not yet been operationalised, except ...
Earlier this week, the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal approved the setting up of a Legislative Council in the state. It was a promise made by the party in its election manifesto. West Bengal’s Legislative Council was abolished 50 years ago by a coalition government of Left partie...
The newly elected West Bengal Assembly, with 294 seats, will have fewer political parties than last time, with its legislators representing 3 parties compared to 8 in 2016. In the Tamil Nadu and Kerala Assemblies, it is the opposite. In Tamil Nadu (234 seats), the number of parties represented in th...
The central government has repromulgated the ordinance that establishes a commission for air quality management in the National Capital Region, or the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Ordinance, 2020 (https://bit.ly/3duZmHW). This raises questions ...
The session saw Parliament doing a lot of work. But effective legislatures are measured by their outcomes and not by their output. It is time for the government and Opposition parties to prioritise their legislative responsibilities.
Poor planning and check-marking of the law-making process are t...
A simple line in our Constitution lays the groundwork for the Budget Session of Parliament. This opening line in Article 112 states that for every financial year a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the government shall be laid before the legislature. This statement, commonly ref...
The Budget session of Parliament ended on Thursday, two weeks ahead of the original plan, as many political leaders are busy with campaigning for the forthcoming State Assembly elections. This follows the trend of the last few sessions: the Budget session of 2020 was curtailed ahead of the lockdown ...
The 2021-22 budget process concluded on Wednesday in Parliament with Rajya Sabha debating the Finance Bill, 2021 before returning it to Lok Sabha for enactment.
Finance Bills are not referred to Parliamentary Committees for detailed scrutiny.
The 2021-22 budget process concluded on Wednesday i...
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the railways' finances along with the Union Budget on February 1, 2021. Earlier this week, both Houses of Parliament discussed the working of the Railways Ministry and the budgetary allocations to the Ministry. In light of this, we discuss some issue...
On Tuesday, nominated MP Swapan Dasgupta resigned from Rajya Sabha, a year before completion of his term. Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra had raised the issue of his disqualification from Rajya Sabha under the anti-defection law, after the BJP had fielded Dasgupta as...
Legislatures have been called the “grand inquest of the nation”. About 270 years ago, British parliamentarian, William Pitt used the expression to describe the House of Commons. The occasion was the proposed investigations into Sir Robert Walpole’s government. Pitt told his colleag...
The events in Puducherry highlight, yet again, the absurdity of the anti-defection law. In what has now become the standard operating procedure, several MLAs from the treasury benches resigned, lowering the numbers required for a no-confidence motion to succeed. This formula has been ...
Puducherry Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has asked Chief Minister V Narayanasamy to prove his government’s majority in the Vidhan Sabha. According to her direction, the House will meet on Monday, and the only agenda before it will be the confidence vote.
The L-G has also dir...
With assembly elections three months away, the confidence motion’s outcome will be unimportant in Puducherry’s history. But the event will highlight the failure of the anti-defection law and raise an important question. How long will a law which continues to stifle debate in our legislat...
The Central Hall of Parliament doubles up as a portrait gallery. On its walls hang portraits of leaders who shaped the destiny of India. If a viceroy from British India were to walk into the hall today, his mind will find a different commonality between the portraits of M K Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Til...
The Supreme Court’s order on keeping the farm laws in abeyance crosses the line of separation between the legislature and judiciary. In these pages, Pratap Bhanu Mehta (‘A shapeshifting justice’, IE, January 13), wrote that the order is “terrible constitutional precedent...
In the ongoing stalemate between protesting farmers and the Centre, the government has repeated its offer of keeping the three contentious farm laws on hold for one to one-and-a-half years, while the farmers have rejected the offer and insisted that the laws be repealed. Over the...
The Maharashtra government introduced the Shakti Bill in the state Legislative Assembly in December 2020 to curb sexual offences committed against women and children. The Bill proposes amendments to existing laws on crimes against women and children and provides for stricter punishment, including de...
The year 2021 began with an improvement in the economic outlook for the fiscal year 2020-21. December GST collections increased by 12 percent over the same month in 2019; the government has estimated a contraction of 7.7 percent in 2020-21 GDP, better than the initial projections after lockdown. The...
Discontent over the new farm laws is a result of sidestepping debate and discussion in Parliament
The ongoing farmers’ agitation epitomises the need to have detailed discussions and consultations while making law and policy. The process of building consensus and addressing concerns may b...
The Kerala governor and the government of the state are at loggerheads again. This is the second major conflict between the two this year. The first, at the beginning of this year, was concerning the governor’s address to the state legislature. The governor’s address is written by the go...
The government has said that parties are in favour of doing away with the Winter Session, and that it would be appropriate to have the Budget Session in January. How and when is Parliament convened?
In response to a letter from the Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking a sho...
In response to a letter from the Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking a short session of Parliament to discuss the new farm laws, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi has said that some opposition parties “have expressed concerns about the ongoing ...
In response to a letter from the Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking a short session of Parliament to discuss the new farm laws, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi has said that some opposition parties “have expressed concerns about the ongoing pandemic&n...
In 1919, the administration in Delhi was facing a logistical problem. When the plans for the new capital city of Delhi were being drawn up in 1913, it was visualised that sprawling Governor General’s house (now Rashtrapati Bhawan) would also have, within it, the existing unicameral legislative...
Discontent over the new farm laws is a result of sidestepping debate and discussion in Parliament
The ongoing farmers’ agitation epitomises the need to have detailed discussions and consultations while making law and policy. The process of building consensus and addressing concern...
The three-day session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly ended last week. When an Assembly is meeting, it is usually its proceedings which are in focus. That was not the case this time. Overshadowing the proceedings was a decision by the Speaker of the Karnataka Vidhan Sabha, Vishweshwa...
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent national lockdown, several non-essential services were shut down, which had a significant effect on the economy. Consequently, in May 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an economic stimulus package called the AatmaNirbhar Bhara...
It is important that there is wider scrutiny and public discussion on the labour bills
On September 19, the government withdrew three Bills related to labour laws and replaced them with new ones. These Bills make significant changes to regulation of labour and the employer-employee relations...
Two bills to reduce the salaries and allowances of MPs and ministers for one year have been introduced in Parliament. This is being done to help supplement the financial resources necessary to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These bills replace the Ordinances which have been in force since April this ...
The 18-day monsoon session, which starts today, will test the robustness of India’s parliamentary system. The government wants to get the legislature to sign off on 40 bills during the session. Its legislative agenda will put pressure on Parliament to pass several bills every day. And with the...
Despite the limited monsoon session and constraints, MPs must scrutinise the government’s work and guide policy.
The upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, from September 14, is emblematic of the issues faced by legislatures during the novel coronavirus pandemic. How do these bod...
Parliament will meet later this month after being in recess for 174 days. It is the longest gap between the budget and monsoon sessions in the last twenty years, if not more. The announcement about the dates of the session came after the Parliament Secretariat ironed out the logistics for a safe wor...
In view of the pandemic and a truncated Monsoon Session, Parliament has said no to Question Hour and curtailed Zero Hour. The Opposition has strongly criticised this. Why these two periods are important.
On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats notified that there will be no ...
The Constitution mandates legislatures to meet, at least, once every six months. Over the next month, most legislatures, including the Parliament, will be convening their sessions, as the six-month interval comes to an end. However, the continuing threat of the pandemic presents a problem of going a...
The political crises in Manipur and Rajasthan, for the time being, have been averted. In Manipur, Chief Minister N Biren Singh won a confidence vote. And the Congress leadership is paving the way for reconciliation between the two factions in Rajasthan. But the crises have done irreparable harm to i...
The GST (Compensation to States) Act assumes a 14% growth target for States, which is unrealistic
Two weeks ago, the Central government announced that it has released the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation dues to States for 2019-20. The total compensation was ₹1,65,302 crore while the com...
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was released on July 30, 2020. It will replace the National Policy on Education, 1986. Key recommendations of the NEP include: (i) redesigning the structure of school curriculum to incorporate early childhood care and education, (ii) curtailing dr...
It doesn’t prevent legislators from shifting loyalties when they wish, but stifles their voice on policy issues
Law cannot change the nature of politics. Political parties will always find a way of bypassing the intent of the best of laws. So, in 1985, when the anti-defection law was made t...
It is time the Narendra Modi government called the monsoon session of Parliament. The Indian Parliament was in session when the country was in war with China in 1962 and when our armed forces were liberating Bangladesh in 1971. It met the very next day after a cowardly terrorist attack in 2001 on th...
Politics is competitive, and it’s easy to comply with the letter of the law rather than its spirit. And a stricter law will make no difference. Political parties and MLAs will find ways around them, like resigning from the legislatures en masse. A lasting solution to probity in Rajya Sabha ele...
Rajya Sabha elections are a dull affair. Usually, a party’s candidate wins unopposed. But the elections to be held today in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have been preceded by a lot of drama. In Gujarat, eight Congress MLAs resigned before the election. In Rajasthan, Congress Chief Min...
Governments are on a law-making spree. When legislatures are not in session, as is currently the case, India’s Constitution empowers the government to make laws through executive action. The central government has made ten new laws in the last two months. Four were made recently. Two of these ...
Parliaments in democracies around the world are meeting and questioning their governments on their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Canadian Parliament had its first lockdown meeting towards the end of April, with roughly 280 of the 338 Members of Parliament attending through video confe...
The near-total shutdown of legislatures in the country, due to COVID-19, has heavily impacted their primary responsibilities of passing laws, approving government expenditure, and supervising government action.
Impact of COVID-19
Due to the threat of COVID-19, both Parliament and state legisla...
Far-reaching changes have been made to labour laws without scrutiny by the legislature
Over the last few days, many States have made changes to their labour laws. Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab have extended the maximum daily hours of work in a factory from eight/nine to 12, and allo...
