Winter Session of Parliament has (finally) arrived! A session that should have ideally been held in the third week of November was postponed for the Gujarat election campaigns. This is a short session with only 14 sittings overall and with much work to do.

Here is a run-down of the major happenings that happened in the first week of our oh-so-happening Parliament.

Delay and disruption

This year Parliament has seen a historically low number of sittings. With only 57 sittings, this Gormint is setting a dangerous precedent. It is indeed something we must worry about.

Let’s get some basics straight:
1) Parliament makes government accountable to the people as a whole through elected representatives.

2) It is a national forum to raise issues of public importance.

3) Proper laws are only made when Parliament sits more and people get time to study the laws.

What is happening now:

1) Since Parliament sat for less number of days, less chances, less time was given to hold government accountable.

2) Less days means less time to raise issues of public importance.

3) Less days means crappy, badly drafted and barely scrutinised laws are hurried through. Bad laws are bulldozed through.

Conclusion:

1) The current government doesn’t want to be held accountable.

2) Current government doesn’t care about issues of public importance.

3) The current government wants to bulldoze more harmful laws through without scrutiny. Also, it probably intends to rule as much as possible through ordinances.

So the current Gormint doesn’t think Parliament is important. The opposition, particularly the Indian National Congress, went hammer and tongs at them for delaying the sessions. My crying foul and wailing happened before the session began. But then, once it started, the Congress yet again proved that it is no different.

Disruptions happened. This time it was because of PM Narendra Modi’s accusations that Manmohan Singh met some Pakistani folks and conspired with them to win the Gujarat elections. Both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Congress MPs trooped to the well and screamed like banshees, asking for the PM’s apology.

While Rajya Sabha is being consistently adjourned prematurely except on Tuesday, the Lok Sabha has been functioning more or less smoothly after the initial outrage during question hour. The lower house was only adjourned on Monday and functioned for its complete duration for the rest of the week.

The thing is, it’s extremely annoying that in a situation where the current government is already holding the lowest number of sittings, disrupting the little available days of Parliament is a bit unfair. I get why the PM must answer for his ridiculous remarks on the campaign trail, but is it worth disrupting Parliament? Isn’t that unfair on the other members who want to raise issues of public importance during the session?

Repealing and amending

For the past few years, the present government has been going on this spree of abolishing outdated laws in our statute books because they have simply become outdated and aren’t used IRL anymore. Almost every session, they bring in the Repealing and Amending Bill which has a list of laws which are abolished. This session is no different.

Two Repealing and Amending Bills were passed. Both the Bills repealed a total of 235 Acts. Of these 235 Acts, 101 Acts were amending Acts which have been incorporated into the principal Acts. Fifty Acts in this bill are dated pre-1947. Allow me to give you a taste of a few titles of laws that used to exist and have been repealed by these bills:

• The Converts’ Marriage Dissolution Act, 1866
• The Indian Matrimonial Causes (War Marriages) Act, 1948
• The Imperial Library (Change of Name) Act, 1948
• The Sir Currimbhoy Ebrahim Baronetcy (Amendment) Act, 1917
• The Bengal Suppression of Terrorist Outrages (Supplementary) Act, 1932
• The Cattle-trespass (Amendment) Act, 1921

The Modi government has decided to repeal a total of 1,824 such laws, of which 1,183 have already been scrapped.

Here’s something funny: While introducing the Bill, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad waxed on eloquently about how there is a need to remove laws that were put in place by the British to basically crush our will and rule us, pre-1947. One such law, he said, is “The Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act, 1911”. This law, as the title suggests, was used by our erstwhile overlords to prevent ‘anti-national’ elements from gathering and conspiring against the raj. That law now stands repealed.

But, but, but, Sedition still exists and continues to be used! Section 124A in the Indian Penal Code is used quite often to punish (with life imprisonment) those who “by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India.”

So please Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad.

via GIPHY

Speaking of outdated laws, Pinaki Mishra asked why Section 377, which criminalises sex between consenting adults of a different orientation, still exists and has not been repealed along with these 1000s of other laws.

To which, Prasad had a… uh… response?

OK then.

Companies and more companies

The major legislation that cleared Parliament last week was the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016. This Bill has been scrutinised like crazy and has been in Parliament since March 2016. It finally got through and a lot of things are about to change in the way companies function.

1) It dilutes the requirement for having a set objective for a company in its memorandum. Now it can be a memo-random… Get it? Heh.

2) Earlier, there was a prescribed limit for how many subsidiaries a company can have. Well, that’s going away. Companies were also not allowed to have more than two layers of investments. That’s gone too. Companies can now go bonkers with corporate layering and structuring.

Excerpt from the original Companies Act:

Aaaaaaand it’s gone!

There are a whole load of other changes which increase the flexibility and structuring of companies in India. Read complete brief here. And here are a few key takeaways, apart from the ones I mentioned.

Random alert: The much talked about Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017 was sent to a committee in the last session and the report was expected last week. That report presentation date has now been postponed to the last day of Budget Session 2018. So it is unlikely that the FRDI Bill will be taken up this Winter Session.

Until next week, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!