When in doubt, pass it as a Money Bill

BJP enjoys a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha but lacks numbers in the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. For any Bill to clear Parliament, it has to pass both houses of Parliament and then assented by the President. Before the Bills are being passed, a debate is held where MPs highlight certain issues they might have with the legislation and how they might be corrected. They put in amendments to make changes in the law too. The system is designed so that one house acts as a counter-balance to the other, especially in the case of a majority government, and ensures that bad laws do not get through.

But back in the summer of 2016, the government of the day found a way around this checks and balance mechanism when it cleared the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 as a Money Bill. Money Bills have to be cleared only by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha can give recommendations only, which can be completely ignored by the lower house.

The Aadhaar Bill creates a subsidy delivery mechanism and experts have questioned whether it is legitimate to pass it as a Money Bill — which is supposed to only deal with matters of taxation and appropriation of funds. This has also been challenged in the Supreme Court and we are yet to see what the highest court thinks about this particular challenge.

The same method was used by this government again when they put in provisions to create a monetary policy committee (which amends the RBI Act) and retrospective amendments to allow foreign funding to political parties (which amends the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) into the Finance Bill. Neither of these belong there. These provisions were also passed as parts of a Money Bill and Rajya Sabha had no control over the situation.

In a way, this Money Bill trick made sure the upper house becomes irrelevant — where BJP doesn’t have a majority — when it comes to consideration of these all-important laws.

Bulldoze away

The last four years have seen multiple instances of Bills being bulldozed through without discussion. The most recent and the most significant one was this summer when the entire 2018 Budget of the country was cleared without discussion along with the Finance Bill. The reason being given, consistently, is that the Opposition is disrupting the house and is not interested in discussions. But the scenario is a wee bit more complicated than that.

During Budget session 2018, we saw AIADMK was the party that was constantly disrupting the Lok Sabha. Alert Parliament watchers noticed that the cameras were initially not showing which MPs were in the well of the house, but eventually gave the country a glimpse of the fiasco in the later part of the session.