With President Pranab Mukherjee voicing his objection to the ‘Ordinance route’, senior ministers met here today to discuss how to ensure that the Ordinances issued recently are followed up with legislative action in the upcoming Budget session next month.
The meeting called by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and six others deliberated upon the implications that some sectors such as coal will have if the Ordinances are not followed up by passage of bills in Parliament.
The Government has issued at least eight Ordinances, including one on raising the FDI limit in the insurance sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent and the e-auction of coal mines.
The meeting significantly took place a day after the President voiced his objection to the ‘Ordinance route’ used by the Government and cautioned it against the move.
The meeting discussed issues involving procedures to be followed for replacing Ordinances with Bills and the preparatory measures in the coming session in Parliament, likely to begin in the third week of February.
The meeting took note of the possible implications in the event some of these Ordinances are not backed up by Bills in Parliament.
For example there will be a problem in auctioning of coal mines if the Coal Ordinance is not replaced by the Bill.
“I held an informal meeting with my Cabinet colleagues and about nine Ministers were present along with their secretaries to discuss the procedures to be followed for bringing Bills replacing Ordinances such as the Insurance Bill that is pending, the Coal Bill and also the Mines Bill, the Land Acquisition Bill and the Citizenship Amendment Bill,” Naidu said after the hour-long meeting.
“We discussed these Bills threadbare. I apprised them of the procedures to be followed, the earlier precedents and also the need to give advance notice and getting translated into both languages, circulating copies, etc,” he added.
Naidu said he tried to “familiarise them with the procedures and ask the secretaries to be ready by the first of next month. That was the purpose of the meeting today.”
Coal Minister Piyush Goel, Rural Development Minister Rao Birendra Singh, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, MOS for Surface Transport Radha Krishnan, Steel and Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Law Minister Sadananda Gowda and all senior officials of the concerned ministries were present in the meeting.
According to the rules, an Ordinance has to be converted into legislation within 42 days of commencement of Parliament session else it lapses and an Ordinance can be repromulgated only three times.