Govt may seek public views before tabling bills

In a move to prevent agitations like the one by Anna Hazare, which has taken the country by storm, the government plans to have a framework for mandatory pre-legislation consultations before a bill is introduced in Parliament. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Aug 25, 2011, 02:10:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a move to prevent agitations like the one by Anna Hazare, which has taken the country by storm, the government plans to have a framework for mandatory pre-legislation consultations before a Bill is introduced in Parliament.

Sonia Gandhi headed National Advisory Council has formed a working group on mandatory pre-legislative consultations to suggest the way to institutionalise pre-legislative consultations before a Bill is finalised.

Unlike European countries, India does not have a procedure to seek people's view on important legislations or policies.

In Europe, a white paper is issued on the broad outlines of the proposed legislation.

Once the feedback is received, the draft legislation is prepared which is then placed in the public domain for comments.

The Bill is sent for Cabinet approval with a detailed note on why certain suggestions were accepted or rejected.

But in India, for some laws certain consultation process is held while others are closely guarded by the government. Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh is holding consultation on draft land acquisition law but the same did not happen in case of the Lokpal Bill. The Bill became public only after it was introduced in Parliament.

But, Team Anna adopted a totally different strategy of the Jan Lokpal Bill after holding extensive consultations and creating awareness about its provisions. “Our Bill is of people whereas the government's version is a bureaucratic draft,” said Arvind Kejriwal of Team Anna.

The discretion at the hands of the government to seek public views may end, according to a National Advisory Council member.

“The framework is at the discussion stage…we are looking a roadmap which will work,” a NAC member said.

The broad discussions in the working group headed by NAC member Aruna Roy is on ensuring that the government gives specific replies to people's comments on a draft legislation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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