SLATE. All you wanted to know about: Ordinance

If a process is too cumbersome or time-consuming, we Indians love to find a shortcut around it — the famous Jugaad solution.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s decision to take the ordinance route to pass as many as six crucial pieces of legislation in its first six months of office including laws governing land acquisition, auctioning of coal and foreign investments in insurance has attracted sharp criticism from jurists and is undoubtedly a Jugaad solution.

But then NDA is not alone in taking this route. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) during its stint also promulgated more than two dozen laws through the ordinance route, including the contentious The National Food Security Bill.

Simply put, an Ordinance is a law made by the Government without obtaining the blessings of the legislature. Article 123 of the Constitution of India, which allows ordinances was originally intended to allow the Government to pass critical laws when the Parliament was not in session or to deal with extraordinary, unforeseen or emergency circumstances.

Promulgation of an ordinance has to be ratified by the President. Such ordinances carry the full force of a law made by the legislature with one catch. The law only remains in force for six weeks once the Parliament is reconvened, at which time it must be approved by both Houses of Parliament in order to become a law.

Ordinances have similar limitations as ordinary laws, insofar as they cannot violate other laws and principles enshrined in the Constitution.

In the recent winter session of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha was unable to function as usual due to repeated disruptions by the Opposition, which is in majority in the House. This effectively blockaded attempts by the Government to ratify long-pending reforms such as the Insurance Bill and the Land Acquisition Act despite its thumping majority in the Lok Sabha.

So the newly elected government, keen to prove that it wasn’t in the grip of policy ‘paralysis’, decided to enact ordinances to pass these bills into law. But the question is, how much is too much?

The BJP Government has on average passed one ordinance for every 28 days it has been in power. That rivals the number of ordinances pushed through by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when she annulled the democratic process and reigned supreme in the country during the Emergency.

It is important to remember that Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency through an Ordinance. Elected representatives are accountable to you — the voter, and democracy relies on Parliamentary checks and balances to prevent rulers from becoming tyrants. But even without going to such extremes, dissenting voices have as much of a role to play in policy formulation, as those in favour. By effectively side-stepping dissent, ordinances can subvert the democratic process, in favour of the ruling party’s whims.

Now that the government and the Opposition have finished playing who’ll-blink-first, can we get what we voted for — a Parliament that works?

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