The Palais de l'Assemblée in Chandigarh is perhaps the most beautifully designed legislature building of independent India. The Swiss French architect, Le Corbusier, designed it to house the bicameral legislature of the state of Punjab.

The creation of a separate state of Haryana following the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966, led to Chandigarh becoming the joint capital of both states. Thereafter, the Assembly building was shared by the legislatures of the states. The hyperbolic domed Assembly chamber became the legislative chamber for Punjab and the chamber with a pyramid-shaped roof became the home of the legislative chamber of Haryana.

It is in these grand surroundings that the 14th Assembly of Haryana met for three days of its first session, earlier this month. The first session of a newly-elected Assembly is usually a short one. The agenda is broadly taking the oath of office by newly elected MLAs, the election of a Speaker and an address by the Governor to the Assembly, which is followed by a debate on the address.

In three days, the Assembly accomplished all three items on its agenda. Most members took their oath in Hindi and English, while three took it in Sanskrit. In the 90-member Assembly, nearly half the MLAs (44) have been elected for the first time. Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala is the youngest legislator in this Assembly. While it is his first term as an MLA, he has prior legislative experience, having represented Hisar in the 16th Lok Sabha.

There is no dearth of executive and legislative experience in the Assembly. Sixteen of its MLAs have held ministerial positions in previous Assemblies. The leader of Opposition, Congress party’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has been the chief minister of Haryana for a decade, was elected to Lok Sabha four times and this is his fifth term as MLA. His party colleague Raghuvir Singh Kadian is a former Speaker of the Assembly who had won his first MLA election in 1987. This is his sixth term as legislator. Anil Vij of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also in his sixth term and has been a member of the Assembly since 1990. Abhay Chautala, the lone MLA of the Indian National Lok Dal, was leader of Opposition in the previous Assembly and this is his fourth stint in the House.

The next order of business for a new Assembly is the election of the Speaker, who will preside over its proceedings for the next five years. Gian Chand Gupta was unanimously elected as the Speaker. He was the mayor of Chandigarh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in the previous Assembly and is in his second term in the Vidhan Sabha. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, in his statement congratulating Gupta, made three points about the functioning of the state legislature.

Khattar said to maintain the dignity of the legislature, members of every political party should be given equal opportunity to participate in its proceedings. He gave statistics about the number of sitting days of Haryana Vidhan Sabha. The chief minister also appealed to the Speaker that a copy of every Bill introduced in the Assembly should be provided to MLAs at least one day in advance to allow them to study the Bill and participate in discussions.

Truth be told, the Haryana Vidhan Sabha has a less-than-stellar record on all three counts. For example, the proceedings of the Assembly have been disrupted regularly. On multiple occasions, there have been unruly scenes. For example in 2018, an MLA was suspended from the Assembly for using derogatory language and for charging towards another member, shoe in hand.

On another occasion, some members had to be suspended for disrupting the governor’s address and tearing copies of his address. Almost a decade ago, 30 MLAs were suspended for disrupting proceedings while demanding the resignation of the then minister Gopal Kanda.

The situation is no better when it comes to sitting days and legislative functioning. The previous Assembly (2014 to 2019) met three times, each session lasting an average of 17 days a year. Thus, in the last five years, it met only for 84 days. That works out to an average of five hours every day. The Assembly before that (2009-2014) met twice a year for an average of 11 days a year. In its five-year term, it only met for 54 days.

The situation was no better in earlier years. Comparisons with the sitting days of some other state legislatures shows how badly these numbers compare. For example, legislatures in states, such as Kerala and Odisha, regularly meet for an average of 50 plus days every year. The Vidhan Sabha of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh has met for an average of 33 days over the last decade.

So, what should be the benchmark for the ideal number of sitting days of a legislative Assembly? To deliberate on this and other questions of the functioning of legislative institutions, the presiding officers of both state and national legislatures meet, usually on an annual basis. On multiple occasions, this conference has recommended a minimum of 60 days of sittings in a year for state legislature with less than 100 members.

The ball of implementation of this recommendation lies squarely in the court of the state government, which decides when to call for Assembly sessions. Different states and their Assemblies have dealt with this situation differently. The Odisha legislature has specified in its rules that it will meet mandatorily for 60 days every year. Karnataka has enacted a legislation that requires the government to summon the assembly for a period of 60 days a year.

A reduced number of sitting days means that state legislatures do not have time to study, scrutinise and deliberate legislations. For example, the previous Haryana Assembly passed 10 Bills on its last day of functioning. Some of these were legislations such as the Haryana Control of Organised Crime Bill, the Sports University of Haryana Bill and an amendment to the Cow Protection Act. Again, this is not new. Between 2009 and 2014, almost half the Bills were passed by the Vidhan Sabha without any discussion.

Over the last decade, on multiple occasions, anywhere between 10 to 17 Bills were passed in a day. The law-making processes of Haryana Vidhan Sabha are further weakened by the lack of a robust committee system to scrutinise Bills. Such committees exist in other states, such as Kerala and Himachal Pradesh.

The words above do not paint a pretty picture of the Haryana legislature. The beginning of a new Assembly, however, is an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. A start was made in the last Assembly. To give MLAs more time to read and understand the impact of legislations, the previous Speaker had written to the government asking them to only introduce Bills after MLAs had been given adequate time to scrutinise them.

The chief minister has also urged MLAs to focus on legislative work in addition to the issues related to their constituency. He has also suggested to the Speaker to organise a training programme for first-time MLAs to improve their legislative capacity. But this might not be enough.

The Assembly and MLAs will have to do more. The Haryana Assembly needs to take a hard look at its past functioning and institute mechanisms to ensure more and in-depth deliberations and scrutiny of legislations. If it is unable to do that, it will continue in its failure as a law making and representative body for the people of Haryana.

Chakshu Roy heads legislative and civic engagement initiatives at PRS Legislative Research. The views are personal.

The Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Shri Prakash Javadekar inaugurated All India Radio’s new Broadcast Auditorium and launched a digital version of ‘Gurbani’ of archival value as preserved in PrasarBharati Archives at New Delhi today. To mark the 550th Prakash Parv of Guru Nanak DevJi, ‘BaniUtsav’ – a Shabad-Kirtan Concert by eminent Raagis was also organized by the External Services Division of All India Radio.

What is contempt under the Indian law? In India, the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, divides contempt into civil contempt and criminal contempt.

‘Civil contempt’ is a ‘wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other processes of a Court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to the court’.

‘Criminal contempt’ is ‘the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which: Scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court.

Prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with the due course of any judicial proceeding. Interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.’

Need: Judiciary ensures justice and equality to every individual and institutions, therefore, the makers of the constitution upheld the sanctity and prestige of the revered institution by placing provisions under articles 129 and 215 of the constitution, which enables the courts to hold individuals in contempt if they attempt to demean or belittle their authority.

Is criticism allowed? Yes. The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, very clearly states that fair criticism of any case which has been heard and decided is not contempt.

Contempt of Courts (Amendment) Act, 2006: The statute of 1971 has been amended by the Contempt of Courts (Amendment) Act, 2006 to include the defence of truth under Section 13 of the original legislation.

Section 13 that already served to restrict the powers of the court in that they were not to hold anyone in contempt unless it would substantially interfere with the due process of justice, the amendment further states that the court must permit ‘justification by truth as a valid defence if it is satisfied that it is in public interest and the request for invoking the said defence is bona fide.’

Constitutional Background: Article 129: Grants Supreme Court the power to punish for contempt of itself. Article 142(2): Enables the Supreme Court to investigate and punish any person for its contempt. Article 215: Grants every High Court the power to punish for contempt of itself.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has notified the Insolvency and Bankruptcy (Insolvency and Liquidation Proceedings of Financial Service Providers and Application to Adjudicating Authority) Rules, 2019. These rules aim to provide a generic framework for insolvency and liquidation proceedings of systemically important FSPs other than banks.

Background: Section 227 of the [Insolvency and Bankruptcy] Code enables the Central government to notify, in consultation with the financial sector regulators, financial service providers (FSPs) or categories of FSPs for the purpose of insolvency and liquidation proceedings, in such manner as may be prescribed.

The new rules: As per the new rules, only a regulator will be allowed to refer a non-bank lender or housing financier to a bankruptcy tribunal, unlike in the case of companies that can approach a tribunal on their own, or can be dragged into one either by lenders or operational creditors such as material suppliers. The bankruptcy tribunal will appoint an administrator who will try to stitch together a turnaround plan.

The administrator will be nominated by the regulator, such as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the case of non-bank lenders and housing financiers. The registration or the licence of the financial services provider will not be suspended or cancelled during the bankruptcy resolution process. In case a turnaround of the financial institution is not possible, before deciding to liquidate it, the tribunal will listen to the views of the regulator.

Significance: The introduction of an interim framework for resolution of financial service providers under the IBC is a timely and important step for resolution of financial service providers permitting an interplay between regulators, creditors and the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) for appropriate actions.

These rules are likely to help out distressed shadow banks and housing financiers, which have been battling a liquidity crunch for a year.

The government is also planning to increase the amount of deposits in banks that are insured, from the current ₹1 lakh.

What are co-operative banks? Co-operative banks are financial entities established on a co-operative basis and belonging to their members. This means that the customers of a co-operative bank are also its owners. These banks provide a wide range of regular banking and financial services. However, there are some points where they differ from other banks.

Structure of co-operative banks in India: Broadly, co-operative banks in India are divided into two categories – urban and rural. Rural cooperative credit institutions could either be short-term or long-term in nature.

Short-term cooperative credit institutions are further sub-divided into State Co-operative Banks, District Central Co-operative Banks, Primary Agricultural Credit Societies.

Long-term institutions are either State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (SCARDBs) or Primary Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (PCARDBs).

Urban Co-operative Banks (UBBs) are either scheduled or non-scheduled. Scheduled and non-scheduled UCBs are again of two kinds- multi-state and those operating in single state.

Who oversees these banks? In India, co-operative banks are registered under the States Cooperative Societies Act. They also come under the regulatory ambit of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under two laws, namely, the Banking Regulations Act, 1949, and the Banking Laws (Co-operative Societies) Act, 1955.

They were brought under the RBI’s watch in 1966, a move which brought the problem of dual regulation along with it.

Dual Regulation of Urban Cooperative Bank: Urban Co-operative Banks are regulated and supervised by State Registrars of Co-operative Societies (RCS) in case of single-State co-operative banks and Central Registrar of Co-operative Societies (CRCS) in case of multi-State co-operative banks and by the RBI.

The RCS exercises powers under the respective Co-operative Societies Act of the States with regard to incorporation, registration, management, amalgamation, reconstruction or liquidation and in case of UCBs that have multi-State presence, are exercised by the CRCS.

The banking related functions such as issue of license to start new banks/branches, matters relating to interest rates, loan policies, investments and prudential exposure norms are regulated and supervised by the Reserve Bank under the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.