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Mahesh

16/07/24 12:29 PM IST

CJI agrees to list petitions challenging Money Bill route for contentious amendments

In News
  • Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud recently agreed to list petitions challenging the Money Bill route taken by the Centre to pass contentious amendments in the Parliament.
Money Bill
  • A Money Bill is deemed to contain only provisions dealing with all or any of the matters under clauses (a) to (g) of Article 110(1), largely including the appropriation of money from the Consolidated Fund of India and taxation.
  • In other words, a Money Bill is restricted only to the specified financial matters.
  • The reference includes legal questions concerning amendments made from 2015 onwards in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) through Money Bills, giving the Enforcement Directorate almost blanket powers of arrest, raids, etc.
  • Though the court had upheld the legality of the PMLA amendments, it left the question whether the amendments could have been passed as Money Bills to the seven-judge Bench.
Aadhaar Act
  • A simple reading of the Aadhaar Act would show us that its contents go far beyond the features enumerated in Article 110.
  • If anything, it is the provisions in the legislation that pertain to the Consolidated Fund and its use that are incidental to the Act’s core purpose — which, quite evidently, is to ensure, among other things, the creation of a framework for maintaining a central database of biometric information collected from citizens.
  • Ordinarily, a draft legislation is classified as a money bill when it provides for funds to be made available to the executive to carry out specific tasks.
  • In the case of the Aadhaar Act, such provisions are manifestly absent.
  • The Speaker’s decision to confirm the government’s classification is, therefore, an error that is not merely procedural in nature but one that constitutes, in substance, an unmitigated flouting of Article 110.
Source- The Hindu

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