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The monsoon session of Parliament, which concluded Friday, set an unlikely record despite seemingly meandering for the most part because of Opposition protests on the ethnic strife in Manipur.
The session witnessed the government introducing 25 Bills -- the second-highest number of Bills in the dozen sessions of the 17th Lok Sabha. The government ensured the passage of 23 Bills.
Of the five Bills introduced on Friday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah tabled three Bills in the Lok Sabha to replace colonial-era laws, asserting that the proposed laws would transform the country's criminal justice system. One of the Bills seeks to repeal sedition and award maximum capital punishment for crimes, such as mob lynching and rape with minors. The Bill also provides for community service as one of the punishments for first-time petty offences. It lists new offences, such as acts of secession, armed rebellion, subversive activities, separatist activities or endangering the sovereignty or unity and integrity of India.
Only the Budget session of the new Lok Sabha, held from June 17 to August 7, 2019, did better when the government introduced 38 Bills, and Parliament passed 28. If the inaugural session of the 17th Lok Sabha had 37 sittings, the latest monsoon session had 17, suggesting the Bills in the latter were passed with minimal discussion.
The session witnessed the suspension of four Opposition MPs – the Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha, and Sushil Kumar Rinku and the Congress' Leader of the Lok Sabha Adhir Chowdhury. The Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien escaped suspension because of a technicality.
The just-ended session also witnessed the debate on the first no-confidence motion of the 17th Lok Sabha.
Of the 25 Bills introduced in the monsoon session, 20 were in the Lok Sabha and five in the Rajya Sabha. Of the 25, three were referred to committees. “In this Lok Sabha, so far, 17 per cent of Bills have been referred to Committees. This is lower than the last three Lok Sabhas," PRS Legislative Research. In the Budget session in 2019, the government introduced 38 bills, and 28 of those were passed – the highest for any session in 10 years – in 37 sittings.
In this session, the Lok Sabha passed 22 Bills and 20 of them were discussed for less than one hour before passing. Nine bills, including the IIM (Amendment) Bill, 2023, and the Inter-Services Organisation Bill 2023, were passed within 20 minutes in the Lok Sabha. The CGST and IGST amendment Bills were passed together within two minutes in the Lok Sabha on Friday. The Bills to create the National Nursing and Midwifery Commission and the National Dental Commission were passed in the Lok Sabha within three minutes.
But the general productivity was low. The Lok Sabha's productivity was 43 per cent and the Rajya Sabha's was 55 per cent. In contrast, the Lok Sabha in the 2019 Budget session sat for 281 hours, a productivity of 135 per cent, higher than any other Parliament session in the past 20 years.
The monsoon session kicked to life to life at its fag end, with the debate on the no-confidence motion and the government introducing several Bills on its last day. Shah introduced the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Bill, 2023, and the Bharatiya Sakshya (BS) Bill, 2023, which will replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860, Criminal Procedure Act, 1898, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, respectively. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and some other Opposition parties criticised the Hindi names of the Bills. The home minister requested Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to refer the three Bills for examination by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs.
