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Amit Shah tables 3 bills in Lok Sabha, sent to JPC amid chaos
Tempers flared, copies of the bills were torn and members of the ruling and opposition coalitions came face-to-face and jostled in the Lower House
Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday introduced in the Lok Sabha three contentious bills that bar any minister, chief minister or prime minister from holding the position after getting arrested, amid a storm of Opposition protests and sloganeering that even saw the draft legislation torn up and pieces of paper flung at the minister.
Tempers flared, copies of the bills were torn and members of the ruling and opposition coalitions came face-to-face and jostled in the Lower House, which eventually sent the three bills to a joint parliamentary committee, comprising 21 members of the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.
Some Opposition members charged towards the Well of the House and even headed towards Shah who was introducing the bill around 2pm, forcing a brief adjournment and admonishment from speaker Om Birla.
When the House was reconvened at 3pm, 15 marshals were brought inside the House and the home minister introduced the bills from the fourth row, instead of the first, guarded by marshals.
“On one hand, PM Narendra Modi has introduced a constitutional amendment to bring himself into the ambit of law. On the other hand, under the leadership of Congress, the entire opposition has opposed it in order to remain above the law, run governments from jail, and cling to power,” Shah posted on X.
The three bills – the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, The Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill and The Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill – propose that a sitting minister, chief minister or even the Prime Minister can lose their position within a month if they are arrested or detained for 30 consecutive days over an offence that carries a jail term of five years or more.
Shah rose to introduce the three bills – which will require a two-thirds majority in the House to become a law – shortly after 2pm. Almost immediately, at least five opposition MPs opposed it, saying the members were not given time to read the bill, and alleged that the bill will empower agencies to settle political rivalry, target opposition parties and undermine constitutional safeguards.
Congress leader KC Venugopal, who also tore a copy of the bill, asked the home minister if he had resigned after being arrested when he was the state home minister in Gujarat. “The people in BJP are saying that this bill will bring back morality in politics. I want to ask the home minister. He had been arrested. Whether he took the morality of resigning…This bill is to threaten people like Nitish Kumar (Bihar chief minister) and N Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh CM).”
An irate Shah responded immediately. “When the allegations were levelled and before the arrest, I resigned on moral grounds. Until the courts passed an order, I did not accept any constitutional post. I want to assure that this bill will ensure morality. We should not have a situation where there are grave allegations and yet the person continues to hold the post,” he said.
Trinamool Congress’s Trinamool’s Kalyan Banerjee, who was standing in front of Shah, turned around and tried to use the minister’s microphone to oppose the bill. Some other TMC members hurled papers in front of the minister. Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, who was seated on the second row, rushed to stand between the protestors and Shah. Minister of state Ravneet Singh Bittu also came running down.
The bill was finally introduced at 3.02pm after a voice vote and sent to a JPC by 3.05pm after another voice vote.
Opposition MPs, including All India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen’s Asaduddin Owaisi, Congress’s Manish Tewari and Venugopal, and Revolutionary Socialist Party’s NK Premachandran, spoke against the introduction, terming the proposed law against the Constitution and federalism.
Demanding that Shah withdraw the bills, Tewari said they were “squarely destructive” of the basic structure of the Constitution and turned the fundamental principle of the rule of law that a person is innocent till proven guilty on its head.
The bills gave due procedure a go-by and made an investigating officer the “boss of the Prime Minister of India”, he said.
Later in the evening, the home minister defended the bills.
“On account of the Modi government’s commitment to restoring moral standards in politics and in view of the public resentment towards the menace, today with the Lok Sabha speaker’s permission, I tabled constitutional amendment bills that will prevent people from holding important constitutional positions like Prime Minister, chief minister, or Union or state minister while in jail,” Shah later posted on X.
He also attacked the Congress. “I want to remind Congress that I had resigned even before being arrested. I did not hold any constitutional position, even after being released on bail, until the court fully acquitted me…The BJP and the NDA have always stood for moral values. On the other hand, the Congress party continues to carry forward the unethical tradition started by Smt. Indira Gandhi,” he said.
The three bills propose an entirely new legal framework that will be applicable to ministers and CMs in states and Union territories such as Jammu & Kashmir, and Union ministers and the PM at the Centre. To be sure, the bills suggest that a dismissed minister, CM or PM can be appointed again after their release from custody.
There is currently no provision to remove a sitting minister if they are accused of a crime. Only a Member of Parliament or legislative assembly can lose their seat (and if they’re a minister, effectively their ministership) if they are convicted for a crime that carries a punishment of two years imprisonment or more.
Owaisi said the bill violated the principle of separation of powers, undermined the elected government and gave executive agencies a free run to become a judge, jury and executioner based on flimsy allegations.
“Only when an offence is proved without reasonable doubt then only you can leave the post and membership. But here a mere accusation, allegation has the punishment of losing a minister post…This amendment will leave the CM and ministers at the mercy of the agencies,” he said.
