Is Indian Democracy Withering Away?, as there have been many voices recently claiming such. The reason cited by some that, upon being introduced in the Lok Sabha, Bills are needed to be referred to a standing committee for a deeper analysis. Standing Committees which are appointed for a year’s period, reflect the composition of the Parliament with up to 21 members from the Lok Sabha and also 10 members from Rajya Sabha. As a result they convey divergent interests. The Ministers or Members who are responsible for formulating the Bill, cannot be nominated to such Committees, to ensure a completely fresh and unbiased study of the bill being carried out. But under the current government, only seven out of 76 passed Bills were referred to Standing Committees.
Bills need not be referred to Standing Committees alone, they can be referred to ad hoc committees too, Select Committees or say Joint Committees of the Houses, which are in fact appointed for a limited period of time given with the task of scrutinizing a particular Bill. As a different case to Standing Committees, ad hoc Committees don’t have a cap over the number of members who can be appointed. They even, don’t have a bar on ministers to be appointed to such committees. As under this government, only two Bills were referred to Joint Committees of the both the Houses, meanwhile other three were referred to Select Committees constituted by the Rajya Sabha, only after they were passed in Lok Sabha. Not a single Bill was referred to Select Committees constituted under Lok Sabha.
So, as per the stats, a total 76 Bills passed by both Houses, and a total of just 12 Bills had been scrutinized by some Committee.
Laws of great complexity such as the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Amendment Act, 2018, the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, as well as laws which have far-reaching consequences such as the Atomic Energy (Amendment) Act, 2015, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2015, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Amendment) Act, 2016 and the Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Act, 2017 have been passed without referral to any such Committee.
Anyone might ask the question of whether why lack of Committees is “murdering Parliament”, especially in such a case when these laws were legally passed by Parliament. After all, basic lessons in Civics classes we got to learn is that we are a democracy because we elect representatives to Parliament who have the authority to pass laws. The “executive” wing of government has to merely ‘execute’ or implement the law and cannot meddle with the passing of laws.
In the Indian democratic model, the executive does execute laws through its officers in the administrative, tax, railway, police and other such services. However, the executive also formulates policy related to it — either as schemes or drafted as Bills — through the Council of Ministers comprising the Union Cabinet, Ministers of State and sometimes it may have the Parliamentary Secretaries.
You May Also Read: Aadhaar Was Meant For Ending Corruption In Welfare Schemes, But Deserving Find It Complicated