In an embarrassing situation, the Government on Tuesday failed to withdraw in Rajya Sabha three Bills, which had been replaced by Ordinances. The Government had to defer its decision to withdraw these Bills after the entire Opposition objected to a related motion and sought a comprehensive debate.
The three Bills — the Insurance laws (Amendment) Bill 2008, the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2014, and the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill 2014 — need to be withdrawn and replaced with fresh Bills given the fact that they have been replaced by an Ordinance.
Finance Minister and leader of the House Arun Jaitley while referring to the rules of business explained the reason for withdrawing the Bill. However, the Congress, left parties, Trinamool Congress, Janata Dal (United), Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party got together and questioned the intent of the Government and insisted on a debate on the motion for withdrawal itself.
“I would like to request leader of House, the three Bills they want to withdraw are now property of the House. It is fine that the Government with permission of House can withdraw them. But we have not discussed it yet. How can they know if we will support or be against the Bill,” said leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad.
“If the Bills were to be withdrawn, then why did you bring an Ordinance. The withdrawal is against the propriety of the House. It will be difficult to support the motion to withdraw the legislations without a discussion,” he added.
CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury questioned the intention of the Government when it had already brought Ordinance to replace the Bills and said these Bills should be debated first. “On one of the Bills, a select committee has been constituted. Such withdrawal is against the propriety of the House,” Yechury said.
Responding to the Opposition’s attack, Jaitley said these three Bills had become infructuous. “When there is a valid law in existence, that law has to be introduced in one House, in this case the lok Sabha, and a Bill substituting the Ordinance has simultaneously to be introduced. An earlier law identical or otherwise pending in one of the Houses as a Bill becomes infructuous,” Jaitley explained.
“Constitution has conferred certain amount of constitutional wisdom to this House, and one of the wisdom is that this House does not deal with infructuous piece of legislation. If members, because of the reality of legislative numbers, want an infructuous piece of legislation to occupy the calender and space of this House I have no difficulty,” Jaitley said, adding: “I believe there is an element of attachment to an infructuous legislation. Once the other Bill becomes a law the infructuous Bill that you say is property of the House can be gifted to each one of you.”