Nearly 44 per cent of the 583 Bills tabled in state Assemblies were passed on the same day they were introduced, reveals a report by PRS Legislative Research, titled The Annual Review of State Laws, 2021.
In fact, 10 states – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Mizoram, West Bengal, Punjab, Delhi, and Puducherry – passed all their Bills on the very day they were introduced.
Karnataka passed the highest number of Bills at 47, and 70 per cent of them were passed after at least five days of deliberation. The Kerala Assembly, which passed 36 Bills, spent the most time on debates and deliberation, with 94 per cent of their Bills taking more than five days to pass. The Delhi and Puducherry Assemblies passed the least number of Bills — two and three, respectively.
Overall, however, only 40 bills, or less than 10 per cent of the total, were referred to committees for examination.
Sittings
Besides, state legislatures also met more infrequently in the year, sitting for an average of just 21 days in 2021. Of 29 legislatures, 17 state Assemblies met for less than 20 days, while five — Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Sikkim, Nagaland, and Delhi — met for less than 10 days in the calendar year. The average was boosted by three states — Kerala, which met for 61 days, Odisha (43 days), and Karnataka (40 days).
While the low number of sittings could be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the massive spike in cases and casualties during the first half of 2021, state Assemblies weren’t meeting more frequently before the pandemic either. In 2018 and 2019, they met for an average of 27 and 26 days, respectively. In comparison, the Lok Sabha met for 205 days in 2021, while the Rajya Sabha met for 162 days.
Focus on education
Also noteworthy are the subjects that the legislatures chose to focus on. Education was the top priority with 21 per cent of all laws passed in 2021 related to this subject. One of the more prominent examples of education Bills — The Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill — came from Tamil Nadu. The Bill proposes to use Class 12 marks instead of NEET scores as a selection criterion for admissions to undergraduate medical courses in the state. It was passed by the state Assembly on the same day it was tabled by the MK Stalin government. In fact, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, which both passed 38 Bills each — second only to Karnataka’s numbers — approved most of these within a day of introducing them.
After education, taxation and urban governance accounted for the largest share of state laws passed in 2021, at 12 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively. While several of the other sectors saw crucial legislations, including ones relating to online gaming, reservation of jobs for local candidates from the state, and the safety of women and children, none of these accounted for more than 5 per cent of Bills passed.
Why the hurry?
The PRS data begs the question: Why were state legislatures in such a hurry to pass Bills? Elections might have been a major cause. The outgoing Punjab Assembly tabled and passed no less than 16 Bills in its last sitting. In fact, four out of the five state Assemblies where elections were held in early 2022 — Goa, Punjab, UP, and Uttarakhand — had all decided to hurry through their legislations before the upcoming polls. All or a majority of their Bills were passed within a day of introduction. Only the Manipur Assembly showed some inclination for deliberation, dedicating two to five days to most of the Bills it passed in 2021.
The other probable reason might be a backlog of parliamentary proceedings from 2020, which saw a stark drop in the average number of sitting days for state assemblies — only 17 — due to the pandemic.
The quick passage of Bills in state Assemblies may also reflect on the state of the Opposition, and a lack of strong agenda-based scrutiny of the government’s policy.
However, Sandeep Shastri, National Coordinator of Lokniti and Vice Chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University, attributes this to a more deep-seated political phenomenon. “We need to understand that there is a change in the expectations of legislators, in India and across the world,” he said. “They are more interested in issues they can leverage in their constituencies and in their parties. The onus of deliberation on Bills and policies has moved away from the Assembly floors to special committees.”
Committees that can examine the content of proposed Bills with the help of sectoral experts or the representatives of the Bill’s major stakeholders are common in parliamentary proceedings. State legislatures, however, have consistently maintained their distance from such bodies.
Commenting on the state of the committees, Shastri added: “Parties are not serious about their representatives on these committees. With senior members busy focusing on electoral issues, often more inexperienced and newer members of the party are nominated to such committees.”
Niranjana Menon, analyst at PRS and a co-author of the report, also pointed out that most State Assemblies don’t have a committee system yet. “Some State Assemblies refer specific Bills to Select Committees on an ad-hoc basis, as we’ve seen in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Himachal Pradesh in 2021,” she said. “However, these practices are not consistent across states and state Assemblies must institute subject committees to strengthen the lawmaking process.”
If the Assemblies want to engage more thoroughly with their legislations, a more serious look at the role of committees is the necessary first step.
