The Opposition has moved a statutory motion, a rarely used tool, to attack the Centre for increasing the excise duty on petrol and diesel.
Interestingly, the motion has been moved in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP is in a minority. If it is adopted, the Government will have no option but to take it to the Lok Sabha and may even be compelled to reverse its decision.
Experienced Parliamentarians say that defeating in the Lok Sabha a motion that has been passed in the Rajya Sabha can create an unprecedented Constitutional crisis.
Amendments to government notifications through a statutory motion are not common. Though statutory motions have been moved earlier against rules of Acts passed by Parliament, this is probably the first time that a ‘sensitive Gazette notification’ is being challenged.
Sensitive notifications are published in the Gazette soon after being tabled in Parliament and are used for duty changes. Normally, they are not debated unless, as in this case, Parliamentarians move amendments.
In less than a month, the Government has increased the excise duty on petrol and diesel twice. The Opposition wants the Government to reduce the excise duty on auto fuels, hiked on November 13, by 10 paisa each on both branded and unbranded petrol and diesel. The motion has been moved against the overall increase in the excise duty (November as well as December).
With the BJP and its allies in a minority in the Upper House, the motion is likely to be passed as the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal(U), the Left and other parties have opposed the excise hike. The motion was moved by CPI (M) leaders Sitaram Yechury and KN Balagopal. Yechury told BusinessLine that the statutory motion will be a “serious development” as the Centre will be forced to rethink the arbitrary hike in the excise duties.
The motion demands that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s notification be amended by bringing the duty on unbranded petrol to ₹2.60 a litre from ₹4.95, and on the branded variety from ₹6.10 per litre to ₹3.75. For unbranded diesel, the Opposition wants the duty brought down to ₹2.86 a litre from ₹3.96 and for branded from ₹6.25 per litre to ₹5.15. Balagopal said the hike cannot be justified as global crude oil prices have dipped about 40 per cent in recent days.
“Global prices are down but Indian consumers have not got the benefit. The decrease the companies have announced is less than 10 per cent, much lower than the global rate of decrease. Rather than increasing the excise duty, the Government should have curbed the windfall profit gains of public and private oil companies,” Balagopal said.