Opinion The House always wins

The discussion on the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill between the government and the opposition has been reported widely. In brief,the standing committee made 18 recommendations,and the government initially accepted 17 of these. The remaining issue related to the liability of suppliers of equipment. When the bill was discussed in the Lok Sabha,the government accepted the formulation proposed by the opposition parties. The only point not conceded was that of the Left parties,who wanted the liability limit to be raised to Rs 10,000 crore (from Rs 1,500 crore).

The BJP scored yet another point during the debate on the Enemy Property Amendment and Validation Bill. The government had issued an ordinance that gave the custodian of enemy property certain extra powers,such as the right to declare that such property vests in him and to sell the property. The Central government could invalidate transfer of enemy property under certain conditions such as an oral will. Also,the property would continue to vest in the custodian even if the legal heir was an Indian citizen. All these changes were brought with retrospective effect from 1968. Later,while it introduced the bill in Lok Sabha,an official amendment was proposed which permitted legal heirs to have some rights. The BJP declared that it would support the bill if it replaced the ordinance without any further amendments. The government chose to defer the bill,and the ordinance will lapse this Sunday.

Three bills,which the government did not want to refer to parliamentary committees,were referred to such committees at the insistence of Parliament. The government had introduced the New Delhi Municipal Council (Amendment) Bill. The delimitation act changed the Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies that fell within the NDMC area. The NDMC amendment bill changed the composition of the council to reflect this. It also increased the number of nominated members. Lok Sabha discussed this bill for a couple of hours but then the BJP insisted that the composition and working of the council required detailed study. The bill was then referred to a standing committee.

The Prevention of Torture Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha in the last session of Parliament,and passed after a short debate. The bill defines torture and provides for punishment of public servants found guilty of such acts. Several commentators have said that this bill deserves careful scrutiny as it defines torture in a limited manner and has restrictive conditions to prosecute any official. In brief,torture is an act by a public servant that causes grievous injury to any person or danger to life,limb or health. An official may be punished only if (a) he does the act to extract confession or information; (b) the act is on grounds of group identity (such as religion,caste,community etc); (c) the complaint is made within six months; and (d) the government sanctions prosecution of the official. The government had listed the bill for consideration and passing in Rajya Sabha too. However,they decided to set up a select committee to examine the bill.

Similarly,the Wakf (Amendment) Bill was not referred to the standing committee and passed by the Lok Sabha. This bill changes the composition of Wakf boards and requires state governments to make a list of all Wakf properties. The Upper House formed a select committee of its members to scrutinise this bill and report to them.

The silver lining this session — in the midst of many disruptions — was the manner in which Parliament insisted on thoroughly examining the government’s legislative proposals. This trend provides hope that our legislators will make law in an informed manner.

The writer works with PRS Legislative Research,New Delhi express@expressindia.com