73 Rajya Sabha MPs retire this year, many during Budget Session. Government and Opposition will strive to control Rajya Sabha.

The budget session of Parliament is less a week away. The session will begin on 31 January and on 1 February, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Budget. It will be the eleventh time that the budget presentation will take place on a Saturday. The last time it happened was in 2015. It was the budget presented by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, which restarted the conversation about the GST and set the stage for direct benefit transfer through Jan-Dhan accounts, etc.

The Budget Session is the longest session of Parliament, lasting for approximately eight to nine weeks [30-35 working days] with the sittings divided into two parts. A shorter first part in which MPs broadly discuss the government’s functioning, economic scenario in the country and the budgetary proposals. The houses then take a break. During the break, parliamentary committees take a closer look at the financial plans of the ministries of the government of India. After the break, this scrutiny moves on to the floor of Parliament.

While the focus of the session is on the budget, there is more to the session itself. On the first day of the session, the President will address MPs from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the Central Hall of Parliament. In his speech (prepared by the government) he will outline the priorities of the government for the coming year. These priorities will translate into government policy or legislation that the government pilots through Parliament.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first term, 133 bills were passed by Parliament. Another 46 bills which were in the pipeline lapsed after the dissolution of Lok Sabha. In the last six months, many of the lapsed bills, such as the consumer protection, motor vehicles amendment, code on wages, triple talaq etc., have been reintroduced and passed. As a result, there is an almost a clean legislative plate before Parliament in 2020. Which means that the upcoming budget session will act as a weather vane for the legislative agenda that the government intends to roll out over the next four years. While the government has not listed its legislative priorities, some indicators can shed light on the government’s intent when it comes to issues around land, labour and capital.

Let’s take land first. The NDA government’s first legislative attempt in this direction was the 2015 amendment to the land acquisition act. The bill was relaxing the requirements for the acquisition of land for strategic and developmental activities. Stiff opposition in Parliament led to the shelving of the amendment. The government then changed its strategy. It encouraged state governments to amend the central law in its applicability to their states, which many did. Since then there hasn’t been a major legislative push on the subject of land in Parliament.

Over the last decade, successive governments have been working towards digitisation of land records. The 2019 general election manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party mentions that this process will be completed on a mission mode basis. The manifesto also talks about second-generation land reforms to ensure title guarantee for the landholder and reduce land-related litigation. Studies have pointed out land dispute litigation accounts for 2/3rd of all pending cases in the country. Another one suggests that land disputes take an average of 20 years to resolve. With a comfortable majority on its own in Lok Sabha and improved floor management in Rajya Sabha, the government could be looking towards fulfilling its electoral promises on land reforms.

On the other hand, reform in the labour sector is something that the government is actively pursuing. In the last six months, three significant bills dealing with the sector have been introduced. The first bill deals health, safety and working conditions in establishments employing more than nine workers. The second bill is the Industrial Relations Code Bill which deals with industrial disputes and trade unions. The third focusses on the social security of workers, like provident fund and maternity benefit. These three bills will consolidate 25 existing laws. The parliamentary committee on labour headed by Lok Sabha MP Bhartruhari Mahtab is currently examining these bills.

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term, the legislative focus of the government was on the financial sector. Approximately 26% of the total laws passed were from this sector. Some of them being FDI in insurance, GST, the insolvency code, Fugitive Economic Offender law etc. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code continues to evolve. In the upcoming session, the government will push for the passage of an amendment to the law. This amendment will set the minimum threshold for initiating resolution by financial creditors and by allottees in real estate projects. The Companies Act has also seen modifications, especially towards decriminalising offences. However, the major announcements for catalysing the economy will have to wait for the budget.

The government’s attention is also towards the use of personal data. The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Bill and the Personal Data Protection Bill have been introduced to provide the regulatory mechanism for the usage of data of individuals. Both these bills are also being scrutinised by parliamentary committees. The DNA bill is being examined by a committee headed by Rajya Sabha MP, Jairam Ramesh. Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Lekhi is chairing a joint committee of the two houses which is scrutinising the government’s personal data protection bill. The committee process is a structured opportunity for stakeholders to get their voice heard in the lawmaking process.

Parliament and politics go hand-in-hand. During the year, 73 Rajya Sabha MPs will be retiring, many of them during the budget session. The electoral outcomes in states over the last few years will decide whether the government or the Opposition control the decision-making in the upper house. The position of the Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha is also vacant. It is a position that usually goes to a political party which is an ally of the ruling party. With no coalition compulsions, it will be interesting to see who occupies this position.

Another question that has been actively discussed is the composition of the council of ministers. The current strength of the council stands at 56 ministers. Constitutionally, there is space for 24 more ministers. With a comfortable majority in Lok Sabha, it remains to be seen whether the Prime Minister will expand or reshuffle his cabinet in the coming months. Answers to these political questions and the legislative priorities of the government over the next four years will start becoming clearer when the budget session starts next week.

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

President Kovind will address Parliament today. Days ago, the Kerala Governor expressed an opinion on one paragraph of his Assembly address, prepared by the government. A look at provisions and precedents.

Earlier this week, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan addressed the Legislative Assembly of the State. During his address, he stopped before reading out paragraph 18, which related to the Kerala government’s opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The Governor said he was of the opinion that the paragraph did not relate to policy or programme. He went on to say that since the paragraph relates to the view of the government, to honour the wish of the Chief Minister he was going to read it despite his disagreement with the CM.

On Friday, first day of the Budget Session of Parliament, President Ram Nath Kovind will address a joint sitting of the two Houses.

Under what provisions does the President or a Governor address the legislature? The Constitution gives the President and the Governor the power to address a sitting of the legislature. The special power is with regard to two occasions. The first is to address the opening session of a new legislature after a general election. The second is to address the first sitting of the legislature each year.

Commonly referred to as the President’s or Governor’s Address, they are a constitutional requirement. A session of a new or a continuing legislature cannot begin without fulfilling this requirement. When the Constitution came into force, the President was required to address each session of Parliament. So during the provisional Parliament in 1950, the President gave an address for all three sessions. At the suggestion of Speaker G V Mavalankar, the first Constitutional Amendment in 1951 changed this position.

Besides being a constitutional requirement, the President’s or Governor’s Address is keenly watched as it outlines the government’s policy agenda and stand on issues.

Are there parallels in other countries? Similar provisions exist in other democracies. In the United States, it is referred to as the “State of the Union”. The phrase comes from an article in the US Constitution which specifies that the President, “from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” In the United Kingdom, it is referred to as the Queen’s Speech and is part of the ceremony to mark the formal start of the parliamentary year. But the two systems are different. In the American system, the President has the option of simply sending his written speech to Congress instead of personally going to deliver it. He also puts forward the position of his administration. In the British system, the Queen’s speech written by the government. She reads it in person from the throne in the House of Lords.

The President’s Address in India is mirrored on the British system. During the framing of the Constitution, B R Ambedkar drew a similarity between the President and the monarch under the English system. He said the President “is the Head of State but not of the executive. He represents the nation but does not rule the nation. He is the symbol of the nation.

His place in the administration is that of a ceremonial device of a seal by which the nation’s decisions are made known”. The Constitution binds the President and the Governor to act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers of the Union and state governments respectively, on a majority of issues. Therefore, the speech that the President or the Governor reads before the legislature is the viewpoint of the government and is prepared by it.

What is the content of the President’s or Governor’s address? During the making of the Constitution, an unsuccessful attempt was made to bring some specificity to the content of the President’s Address. The President’s speech follows the convention of the British system, where it contains legislative and policy proposals that the government intends to initiate. The speech also recaps the government’s accomplishment in the previous years. The contents of the speech are put together by aggregating inputs from various ministries of the government.

If the President disagrees with the text of the speech, are they still bound to read it? The President or a Governor cannot refuse to perform the constitutional duty of delivering an address to the legislature. But there can be situations when they deviate from the text of the speech prepared by the government. So far, there have been no instances of President doing so. But there has been an occasion when a Governor skipped a portion of the address to the Assembly. In 1969, the Governor of West Bengal, Dharma Vira, skipped two paragraphs of the address prepared by the United Front government. The government was led by Chief Minister Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee with Jyoti Basu was the Deputy CM.

The skipped portion described as unconstitutional the dismissal of the first United Front government by the Congress-ruled central government. The issue was then debated in Parliament. The Opposition was critical of the Governor’s conduct and moved a motion disapproving of his actions and calling them against the letter and spirit of the Constitution. MPs from the Treasury benches, including Asoke Kumar Sen, Law Minister Govinda Menon and Home Minister Y B Chavan, came to the defence of the Governor. The Opposition’s motion was ultimately defeated.

How have members responded to the addresses over the years? The conduct of MLAs during the address has sometimes been an issue. The Governor’s speech in state legislatures has routinely been interrupted. For example in 2017, during the Governor’s address in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, paper balls and planes were thrown at Governor Ram Naik. The staff of the Assembly had to surround the Speaker and swat away the paper balls using cardboard files.

In Parliament, the first instance of interruption of a President’s speech happened in 1963; President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was speaking when some MPs interrupted him. The Lok Sabha took note of the incident and a reprimand was issued to the MPs. Over the years, political parties have resolved to treat the President’s Address sacrosanct and agreed not to interrupt it.

What procedures follow the address? After the President or Governor delivers the address, a debate takes place not only on the contents of the address but also the broad issues of governance in the country. This then paves the way for discussion on the Budget.

The author is Head of Outreach, PRS Legislative Research.