india

Updated: Jun 21, 2019 22:39 IST

Vice president and Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday proposed radical structural reforms in parliamentary procedure that, if accepted, will extend the shelf life of the bills introduced in the Lok Sabha and put an expiry date on legislation generated in the Rajya Sabha.

As things stand, bills tabled and cleared in the Lower House lapse with the dissolution of the House of the People if the Rajya Sabha does not clear them; on the other hand, bills tabled in Rajya Sabha remain pending if the House does not clear them because the Council of States has a continuous term in which only members change by rotation.

Naidu asked on Friday why this must be so.

“The Bills passed by the Lok Sabha and pending in the Rajya Sabha lapse with the dissolution of the House of the People. They have to be reintroduced in the Lok Sabha and the entire process has to be gone through afresh. This means a lot of delay. Can we make any change in this regard?” Naidu said in the Rajya Sabha.

“Long pendency does not reflect well on the functioning of the Parliament. In order to streamline the process, I suggest that if a bill is not taken up for consideration and passing in Rajya Sabha within five years of introduction, it should be treated as deemed to have lapsed. Let us have a wider debate in this regard as well,” he added.

If Naidu’s proposal – which will require constitutional changes -- is agreed upon by the government and the Houses of Parliament, it would mean a major shift in the legislative process. For example, the triple talaq bill, which was first tabled in the 16th Lok Sabha but could not go through to the Rajya Sabha, was again tabled in the Lower House – now the 17th Lok Sabha -- on Friday.

Several other key pieces of legislation, including the Motor Vehicles (amendment) Bill, and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill were cleared by the 16th Lok Sabha but lapsed because they could not be passed in the Upper House, where the opposition parties have a majority. In all, 22 bills cleared in the 16th Lok Sabha lapsed because they did not get passed by the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling National Democratic Alliance is expected to get a majority next year.

A Rajya Sabha official said that Naidu’s idea is aimed at making the legislative process faster. “All these long-pending bills relate to important issues that merit timely consideration and passing,” he said, asking not to be named.

For Naidu’s suggestion to go through, the government will have to bring in a Constitution Amendment Bill to amend Article 107, which lays down the provisions of the introduction and passing of bills in Parliament.

While it may take a long time to realise these proposals even if the government is on board, the idea has kicked off a debate among parliamentary experts.

When contacted, TK Vishwanathan, who was law secretary between 2006 and 2009, said that the vice president has a point. “What is the use of keeping bills pending for decades in Rajya Sabha? Also, when a bill lapses, a lot of efforts go into waste. It will again come up, lawmakers may mostly make the same arguments and again it will go to the other House. The issues need to be debated,” he said.

Thirty-four bills that originated in the Rajya Sabha are still pending, out of which one bill (The Delhi Rent Amendment Bill) is from 1997 when IK Gujral was the prime minister and two bills are from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era between 1998 and 2004.

Naidu said that he is not asking one House to blindly follow another House, and pointed out that disruptions had taken a heavy toll on the performance of the Rajya Sabha. “I don’t get sleep on some days,” he said, adding that the disruptions lead to a negative public perception about parliamentarians.

A Congress Rajya Sabha member, Vivek Tankha, said he was on the same page on one part of Naidu’s suggestion but the other may alter the very nature of the Lok Sabha. “I tend to agree with his proposal about bills pending in Rajya Sabha [should lapse]. But the concept of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha are different, so I would tread with caution on his proposal to retain Lok Sabha bills even after the term of Lower House is over. When a new Lok Sabha gets constituted, it may have its own view about a particular bill. We should not change the nature of Lok Sabha. That is how our forefathers had envisaged and let it remain that way,” he said.

A former parliamentary affairs secretary said, “It’s a good idea. If one can’t pass a bill in five years, the bill might lose its importance. But the government needs to take all parties into confidence as it will alter a major part of the lawmaking process.”

Nalin Kohli, BJP’s national spokesperson, said, “Naidu is a senior political person with a rich experience, and any suggestion {he makes} must be discussed. Finally it is the collective will of Parliament that will decide what is best for the nation.”