Article 107 of the Constitution of India, which deals with the passage of a Bill in Parliament, states, “Subject to the provisions of Article 108 and 109, a Bill shall not be deemed to have been passed by the Houses of Parliament unless it has been agreed to by both Houses, either without amendment or with such amendments only as are agreed by both Houses.”
I’d like you to pay attention to the word “agree” in this article’s provision. In every case, every word written in the constitution holds weight in and of itself. The term “agree” has its own meaning in this context. Only when a bill is discussed in the House can it be agreed or disagreed upon. What type of agreement and disagreement can there be without debate on the House floor?
But the present Modi government has ruined the essence of this ‘agreed’ word. The BJP is in majority in both the houses of the Parliament. The bill is brought to the table of the Parliament as per the governments’ wishes, and without any discussion or with a formal discussion of only 10 minutes-15 minutes, it gets passed even without voting by giving excuses as per the strength of their party’s majority or by accusing opposition being in well or by giving excuses like the house being not in size or out of control.
The same thing happened on the first day of the ongoing winter session of Parliament recently. The government got the bill repealing all the three agriculture laws passed by both the Houses of Parliament without any discussion. When the government had brought this bill in the Parliament, even then, no discussion was allowed on it and without even getting the opposition to discuss, it was passed. Even at that time, the opposition kept on expressing outrage and the government passed the bills. This time too, the opposition kept demanding that the MSP be brought under legal purview, a discussion on the Lakhimpur Kheri issue on the farmers who lost their lives in the farmers’ agitation.
The government also got 20 bills passed in the last session of Parliament, i.e., the Monsoon Session. There was no debate in either house of Parliament during the passing of these bills, or if there was, it lasted only 10-15 minutes. During the Monsoon Session, the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, passed 11 laws with an average duration of barely 8 minutes each bill, which includes both the discussion and the process of passing. Not a single bill went up for discussion in the Lok Sabha in this entire session. To put it another way, the government passed all these bills without discussion with the opposition.
Similarly, 9 bills were passed in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, in the last monsoon session, which took an average of only 17 minutes per bill. After this, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said, “Last week BJP imposed 10 important bills for the country in Rajya Sabha, which took only 97 minutes to discuss, think and pass. That is 9.7 minutes per bill. The Prime Minister is humiliating the democratic and parliamentary process.”
These bills included important and social concern bills like Farm Laws, Tribunal Reforms Bill, Insurance Divestment Bill, Juvenile Justice Amendment Bill, Factoring Amendment Bill which were passed without any discussion. What is the meaning of democracy when the opposition does not discuss any issue, any bill at all? Then why even is the government calling a Parliamentary session? If the bill is to be passed without discussion, then the government can do this work within their cabinet meetings.
Behind all this, the government gives the reason for the uproar of the opposition. The issues of the opposition are political, for which it is the responsibility of the government itself to find a political solution and run the Parliament smoothly. To ensure that political issues are resolved and Parliament can run smoothly, the government convenes all-party meetings in which negotiations with the opposition are taken and consent is taken on the work to be done in the Parliament session. If there is no consensus, then the opposition is persuaded, alliance plans are devised.
However, an illustration of this government’s approach toward all-party meetings can be seen at the all-party meeting held before the last monsoon session, when the Prime Minister arrived and left the meeting in less than 10 minutes.
By refusing to engage in dialogue with the opposition, the government is ignoring not just the views of the citizens of the country who elected the opposition party’s candidates and sent them to Parliament, but also the views of those who sent them by choosing the ruling party. Because if a law is passed, it will apply to everyone. And the consequences of bad intentions or poorly drafted laws will fall on every citizen of the nation.
Also Read: Pandora Papers: Modern-day colonialism.