Speaking his mind for the first time over the issue of Parliament stand-offs, President Pranab Mukherjee has said “a noisy Minority cannot be allowed to gag a patient Majority”. He also cautioned the Government against resorting to Ordinance route frequently and expressed that convening a joint session of Parliament to make up for numbers to enact laws is not a “practical” solution.
Addressing faculty and students of Central universities and research institutions through video conferencing, the President said the Government and the Opposition parties should put their heads together and find out a workable solution to avoid a situation for frequent Ordinances. While saying legislation is the exclusive domain of Parliament and Assemblies, the President said that getting a Bill passed is always the easier part but the harder part is the negotiations for reconciling the interests of different groups for the legislation.
“A legislature is effective only if it is able to address the differences among stakeholders and succeeds in building a consensus for the law to be enacted and enforced. When Parliament fails in discharging its law-making role or enacts law without discussion, it breaches the trust reposed in it by the people. This is neither good for the democracy, nor for the policies anchored in those laws,” President said.
The President’s comments have come against the backdrop of a series of Ordinances pushed by the NDA Government. So far the Modi Government has brought in eight Ordinances. The speed and numbers of these have surprised even the President, prompting him to reportedly raise questions over the urgency of the Ordinance relating to acquisition of land before signing on it.
“Ordinance route cannot be taken, should not be taken for normal legislation,” he said replying to a question whether frequent Ordinance follows the spirit of Constitution. He underlined that the Constitution provided for promulgation of Ordinance in extraordinary situation but this route cannot and should not be taken for normal legislation. “I ask the political establishment to engage in a dialogue and resolve their differences,” he said.
Amid speculation that the Government may convene a joint session of Parliament to pass legislations in view of the deadlock in the Rajya Sabha where it does not have a majority, Mukherjee said passage of legislations in that manner is not practicable. “I have seen from 1952 till today, only four times laws were passed by the joint session,” he said.
Pushing for political parties to engage in consultation process rather than adopting a disruptive route, the President said there is a growing tendency to resort to disruption as a means of Parliamentary intervention which leads to loss of time, resources, and paralyses policy formulation. “The cardinal principle of Parliamentary democracy is that the majority has the mandate to rule while Opposition has the right to oppose, expose, and if the numbers permit, to depose. But, under no circumstances should there be disruption of the proceedings. A noisy minority cannot be allowed to gag a patient majority,” he said.