Govt's devious game

GOVERNANCE BY ORDINANCES

I am getting more and more convinced of the truth of the idiom attributed to Marx: “...that the bourgeois government is the executive committee of the big business and industrial houses”. This is sharply brought out by Modi government issuing ordinances on increased FDI through insurance and the Coal Mines (Special Ordinance) the very next day after parliament was adjourned, notwithstanding that it had over three weeks to get these Bills introduced and try to get them passed.

Of course, it is well known that the NDA lacks majority in Rajya Sabha. But then why it did not call for a joint session where it claims it has majority. That a devious game was deliberately being played by the government in resorting to ordinances is clear from the Union finance minister’s open declaration (during the parliament session) that “if the opposition did not relent, the government was ready to take a joint session route” – notwithstanding this boast the government opted for undemocratic route of ordinances.
It is well known that there are serious differences in Parliament about the very motive of passing the amendments allowing increased FDI in the insurance sector – that is why the insurance bill has been held up for nearly six years – BJP ironically was the vociferous opponent in the last Lok Sabha.

The Ordinance regarding auction of coal blocks is even more mischievous. I can understand that the blocks having been cancelled by the Supreme Court last year and they had to be auctioned afresh. But under the cover of re-auctioning, mischievous steps are being taken to erode the provisions of Coal Mines (Nationalisation Act, 1973) which provided that all rights and titles of coal mines shall stand vested in the Central government. It also provides that no person other than the Centre or a government company or a corporation managed or controlled by it can engage in mining. I am convinced that union government deliberately avoided introducing the Bill in Rajya Sabha.

I say this because by the ordinance, the Centre has surreptitiously indirectly amended the Act. It knew very well that for NDA government to reopen nationalisation by a debate in the parliament would make it run for cover and an open charge of serving the interest of its election fund donors.

The ordinance is a half clever sly trick to bring private sector in coal mining after a lapse of over 40 years. People in coal business have explained that the ordinance explicitly allows private-public joint ventures and permits commercial mining by the state government companies, activities which the Supreme Court had said were illegal. This will benefit favourite companies of Modi government that are already partnered by state government companies which lack mining expertise - an indirect method to scuttle the coal mining nationalisation law.

The ordinance regarding Land Acquisition is the limit of hypocrisy and shows total contempt for Parliamentary system. This Act is the result of years of massive agitation by organisations like Narmada Bachao Andolan to get some justice to the evictees of land taken for the benefit of big business and industrialists. Surely, this unanimous legislation by the previous parliament can not be set at naught by an executive ordinance – the irony being that the Act was approved in the previous Lok Sabha by a parliamentary committee headed by the Present Lok Sabha speaker. The puerile excuse that it was necessitated by keeping exemption of atomic plants from the provision of the Act is phony because this would have required only amendment of Section 105.

There was no urgency to dilute social impact assessment measure and the provision of enchanted compensation which was to benefit the millions of poor and dispossessed. Why does not BJP openly admit that it owes a debt to big business by displacing lakhs of farmers / poor residents so that it could open up Delhi-Bombay corridors for the corporate sector for which Modi’s first visit to Japan was the precursor. In fact, the ordinance specifically empowers the government to exclude industrial corridors from the applicability of the Act.

Prez clarification
There are reports that President Pranab Mukherjee sought clarification from some Central ministers when ordinances came for his signature. But then, it was only part obligation under the constitution when issuing the ordinance. The real stake holders – the millions of poor farming population - needed to be consulted and heard through their well established representatives prior to issuing the ordinance especially when these organisations had also represented to you seeking a meeting. 

The ordinance making power is the legacy of British colonialism. This should have no place in free India, nor is it to be found in any other democratic countries. But the Modi government is flouting it by having already readied an ordinance on Arbitration Act (what urgency can possibly explain such a bizarre move?).

The Supreme Court has very strongly commented as in 1987 that the ordinance making power “is in the nature of emergency power to take action when the legislature is not in session. This power is to be used to meet an extraordinary situation and it can not be allowed to be” “perverted to serve political ends”.

Thankfully,  Modi’s undemocratic exercise of power is being resisted by the trade unions who have decided to go on a token strike – the Coal Mine Workers’ Union  and other trade unions have also decided to hold a joint demonstration and protest before the Parliament when it holds its next session.

(The writer is retired chief justice of Delhi High Court)