Rules of debate

Not allowing Bills to be taken up even for debate, leave alone being voted upon, has become the ‘new normal’ in Indian parliamentary practice today. We have at least two examples of it in the ongoing winter session, the first being the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill and the second a Constitution amendment bill seeking to extend reservation quotas to scheduled castes/tribes in promotions for government jobs. The issue is not whether any proposed legislation – include the above – is good or bad, but the right of elected governments to bring it up for consideration and that of members of parliament to exercise their vote as peoples’ representatives.

Instead, we have a situation where the Opposition wants the Banking Laws Bill to be referred afresh to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance before it is discussed in the House. Why? Because, the Government has introduced new clauses in the Bill, making it different from the version that the panel had earlier examined. This argument is fallacious: A Standing Committee is only a mechanism for members, especially those with some experience in the field concerned, to study a Bill closely enough to facilitate more fruitful debate at the time of voting without unnecessarily wasting the House’s precious time. The committee also makes recommendations that may or may not be incorporated in the final version of the Bill brought up for consideration and passage. It is for the House to eventually decide whether to pass the Bill, including the amendments moved clause by clause. By saying that the Government cannot introduce any new provision once a Bill has been referred to the Standing Committee, the Opposition is effectively holding the panel to be superior to even Parliament. Why not allow the latter to take up the Bill, including the proposed new clauses? The same applies to the ‘quota Bill’: If a particular party has a problem, why not have it debated and defeated in the House?

As regards the new provisions in the Banking Bill, it is the one enabling banks to engage in forward trading of commodities that the Opposition is objecting to. Banks currently extend crop loans and finance commodity traders and processors that expose them to price risks. If they could hedge for a collapse in sugar prices – which reduces the value of their collateral against loans to mills – by selling futures contracts, wouldn’t it help lower the risk premium that is implicitly priced into the costs paid by borrowers? The case for dispensing with outdated regulations that prevent banks from even dealing with the commodities they finance – forget hedging any price risks – should be obvious, so long as adequate safeguards are in place similar to the limits prescribed vis-à-vis their exposure to equity markets. There is nothing controversial really to the so-called new clause, on which the Opposition does not even want a debate.