THE LEGISLATURE in a parliamentary democracy, apart from holding the Government to account, is mandated to perform two key functions, one of which is to make laws and the other to deliberate on issues concerning people, society and nation.
The drought of debate
It is rather tragic that, over the years, specifically after 2014, laws are being made by the Parliament without threadbare discussion of Bills introduced by the Government. It is well known that in a democracy laws are made by the legislature by following a deliberative and consultative process in which all stakeholders are involved and even the contents of the proposed legislation are subjected to scrutiny by the concerned committees of the Parliament consisting of members of both ruling and opposition parties.
Over the years, especially after 2014, the passage of Bills in both Houses of Parliament without discussion and scrutiny by parliamentary committees has become the new normal, and it was glaringly manifested during the last monsoon session of the Parliament when 11 bills were passed, and 9 of them without any discussion in the Lok Sabha. It is all the more shocking that not a single member spoke on those 9 bills, except the concerned ministers who uttered a few words while introducing them in the House.
The Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill was discussed in detail in both Houses, with nearly 48 members participating. As far as the bill amending the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 was concerned, only 16 MPs participated in the deliberation when it was taken up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha. The total time given to them was just 50 minutes, which means each MP spoke for an average of just three minutes. In the Lok Sabha, the same bill was passed within two minutes, with no MP participating in the discussion.
The proportion of bills referred to Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committees for scrutiny and examination stood at just 21 percent for the 18th Lok Sabha; the corresponding figure was 71 percent for the 15th Lok Sabha. The percentage of bills being referred to the aforementioned standing committees shows a steady decline, with the figure being 28 percent in the 16th Lok Sabha and 16 percent in the 17th Lok Sabha.
Incidental slip?
This is not a one-off phenomenon, as analysis of previous terms of the Lok Sabha shows that committee referrals have declined sharply after 2014, even though the number of bills being introduced and passed has not declined. This means that more laws are being made with less deliberation or examination, and in some cases, none.
It is salutary to recall that the three farm laws were framed and passed in 2020 without following the deliberative and consultative process of making laws. When the farmers, the stakeholders, agitated against those laws and the matter went to the Supreme Court, it appointed a committee so that the Government and farmers could discuss the provisions of law and find a solution to the issues which triggered the agitation. The discussion that the Government should have undertaken with the farmers before framing those laws was carried out only when the Supreme Court appointed a committee to do so. Eventually, the Modi Government repealed those laws because of sustained yearlong agitation launched by farmers against those laws.
It is worth noting that the framing of those laws without consulting the farmers set an ominous example of dispensing with the process of deliberation in Parliament while exercising its power to make laws.
Earlier in March, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, taking away their right to determine their self-perceived gender identity was prepared without consulting stakeholders such as the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP) and eventually passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, disregarding the objections raised by the opposition parties and the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee on transgender rights. The said bill is violative of the 2014 SC judgment in NALSA v. Union of India that upheld the right of transgender persons to self-identification. The bill was not referred to the Standing or Select Committee for further scrutiny and stakeholder consultations, even after demands were made by the opposition to do so. Now the constitutionality of the law has been challenged in the Supreme Court on the ground that it violates the fundamental rights of the transgender community to define their identities.
The passage of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill, 2026, providing penal measures for preventing insults to Vande Mataram, was passed in the Lok Sabha with minimal debate that lasted for merely 14 minutes and was hurriedly passed in the Rajya Sabha as well.
The importance of deliberation
Both the Houses of Parliament, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, are deliberative chambers, and if Bills are not discussed there before their passage, then the very basis of law-making, anchored in deliberation and scrutiny, gets demolished. While it is important to flag the support of majority members of the ruling party for passing the Bills, it is equally important to underline the legislative intent of the Parliament, which expresses not just the majority principle but also the views which might be contrary to the views of the party in power.
Without deliberation, a legislature becomes a forum where voting takes place to pass legislation, bereft of debates backed by public reasoning and persuasive arguments. Without such debates and discussions, laws passed by the legislature by the sheer votes of a majority of MPs would be devoid of robust legislative intent. The legislative authority to enact laws acquires credibility only when it is anchored in the supporting and opposing views through open arguments between the government and the opposition.
Deliberation is crucially important for generating legislative intent which underlines the intended purpose sustaining the legislation. The constitutional validity of any statute is assessed by the judiciary not merely by examining its bare provisions but by perusing parliamentary debates, parliamentary committee reports and the statements of the ministers proposing the bill to reconstruct the lawmakers’ intentions. Ascertaining the purpose of the legislature behind a piece of legislation is essential for all concerned stakeholders, including the citizens on whom the law applies.
In a parliamentary democracy, the government is accountable to the legislature, where the executive needs to defend and explain its policies, including the proposed bills, before the opposition and to the public.
Article 107 of the Constitution, dealing with provisions regarding the introduction and passing of bills, inter alia, provides, “…a Bill shall not be deemed to have been passed by the Houses of Parliament unless it has been agreed to by both Houses, either without amendment or with such amendments only as are agreed to by both Houses.”
The wording of the Article that “…a Bill shall not be deemed to have been passed by the Houses of Parliament unless it has been agreed to by both Houses… " is significant in conveying the legislative intent of the Constituent Assembly that the agreement is not to be achieved mechanically by just casting votes but through debates and discussions on Bills.
Ambedkar firmly believed that parliamentary democracy is a government of discussion. A Government that legislates by using the Parliament and decides legislation without debate imposes its intent by dispensing with legislative intent. After all, the Bills framed by the Government represent its intent, and only when they are discussed in both the Houses of Parliament does the legislative intent generated by such discussion fine-tune the government intent. Passage of bills without discussion would violate the deliberative and consultative process through which the government is held accountable in the legislature.
It is instructive to note that in India, the practice of reasoned and collective negotiation for making laws can be traced to our freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi started his first Satyagraha in Champaran in 1917 against the terrible exploitation of farmers of that region, forced by British planters to plant indigo in one third of the fertile portions of their land. Gandhi was denied entry into Champaran to investigate the causes of farmers’ suffering by British authorities, and on his refusal to leave the place, he was arrested for breach of peace and presented before a magistrate. When he was asked by the magistrate if he pleaded guilty, he not only pleaded guilty but also showed extraordinary courage in submitting to the penalty of disobedience. As the stunned magistrate asked him if he had to plead guilty, why did he violate the law at all? Gandhi boldly replied that he did so “...in obedience to the higher law of our being — the voice of conscience”. That power of truthful assertion to embrace suffering by breaking an unjust application of law put the British authorities at their wit’s end, and they dropped all charges against Gandhi and allowed him to investigate the causes behind the suffering of farmers. He then extensively consulted with farmers, British planters, scores of peasants, public figures and officials of the British bureaucracy and police. That deliberative and consultative process enabled him to understand the reasons behind the exploitation of farmers and produce a report to that effect. The British regime used it to frame legislation, the Champaran Agrarian Bill, 1918, to prohibit British planters from coercing farmers to plant indigo. The Bihar-Orissa assembly, where that Bill was introduced for consideration and passage, discussed it briefly and then referred it to its Select Committee for scrutiny and examination. Even a copy of the Bill was sent to Gandhi with a request to examine its contents and suggest amendments to its provisions. He did so, and the British authorities accepted his suggestion that the provision dealing with the summary power of the collectors to act against those filing frivolous complaints against British planters should be dropped. The modified Bill subsequently became the law, bringing an end to the exploitation of farmers.
The Champaran Satyagraha, which began with Gandhi admittedly breaking a law for the cause of farmers, ended with the framing of a law by British authorities to put an end to the long spell of suffering of farmers at the hands of British planters.
The Champaran Agrarian Act was not just a unilateral decision but an example of how an extremely powerful colonial government was forced to negotiate and deliberate with all the stakeholders. Sadly, during the last decade, this deliberation and negotiation process has not been followed for preparing Bills and enacting them as laws.
Benchmark of deliberation in Indian democracy
It is important to be mindful of the fact that the Constitution of our country is a product of the thoughtful and careful deliberations that took place in the Constituent Assembly, the transcripts of which serve as the most important authoritative guide to understanding the intention of the drafters of the Constitution. Ambedkar urged the citizens to put their trust in constitutional methods to achieve social and economic objectives. He emphasised the conditions necessary for sustaining democracy not just in form but also in fact.
In his speech delivered in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 25th September 1947 at the inauguration of the ‘Siddharth College Parliament’, he remarked that in a parliamentary government, the decisions are not the result of the wishes of any particular individual. He proceeded to emphatically add that debate in legislatures is of immense importance and has wider relevance and significance beyond the issue being discussed. In the same speech he said, “Although parliamentary democracy for the purpose accepted the principle of a majority rule, do not think that you can by any way you like ill-treat or put to a disadvantage a minority. You will create a great deal of trouble for yourself in this very House. The minority must always be won over. It must never be dictated to.”
The constitutional methods he urged citizens to follow were also aimed at facilitating reasonable deliberation and consultation to deepen public reasoning so that democracy is deepened and grievances of people are addressed in a peaceful and legitimate manner. A legislature that functions mechanically fails Ambedkar and the constitutional values in which he believed.
It is worthwhile to recall that on many occasions the Supreme Court, while adjudicating the constitutional validity of the statutes, finds it hard to understand the intention of the legislature which gave its approval when those were presented in the form of bills to it for consideration and passage. In an event marking the “75 years of Parliamentary Democracy” at the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly in July 2022, the then Chief Justice N.V. Ramana stated that the country was “witnessing laws being passed without detailed deliberation and scrutiny.” He further stated that “instead of engaging in meaningful debates for furthering democracy, politics has become acrimonious. The diversity of opinion enriches polity and society. Political opposition should not translate into hostility, which we are sadly witnessing these days. These are not signs of a healthy democracy.” It is becoming harder for the judiciary to trace the legislative intent for the enactments being passed without detailed scrutiny or discussion. The judiciary’s burden of interpretation, as stated by Justice N.V. Ramana, is increasing as there is ambiguity in laws and the legislative intent is unclear.
In the case of Anoop Barnwal v. Union of India (2023), the Supreme Court, factoring in the legislative intent of the Constituent Assembly for establishing an Election Commission of India independent of the executive, directed that the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner (ECI) and Election Commissioners (ECs) shall be made by the President in consultation with a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. The same year after the SC judgment, the Parliament enacted the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointments, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. It replaced the Chief Justice on the Selection Committee with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. This legislation was enacted with limited public deliberation and its constitutional validity has been challenged in the apex court, as it allegedly gives control of the appointment of the CEC and ECs back to the executive, diluting the judgment in Anoop Barnwal v. Union of India, wherein the invocation of the legislative intent of the Constituent Assembly was defended by the learned judges by quoting from the SC judgment in His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru v. State of Kerala. It was stated by the SC in the Kesavananda Bharati judgment that :
“If the debates in the Constituent Assembly can be looked into to understand the legislative history of a provision of the Constitution including its derivation, that is, the various steps leading up to and attending its enactment, to ascertain the intention of the makers of the Constitution, it is difficult to see why the debates are inadmissible to throw light on the purpose and general intent of the provision. After all, legislative history only tends to reveal the legislative purpose in enacting the provision and thereby sheds light upon legislative intent. It would be drawing an invisible distinction if resort to debates is permitted simply to show the legislative history and the same is not allowed to show the legislative intent …”
Multiple studies and research have shown that parliamentary deliberation has almost been abandoned. Surely, the NDA government has not uniquely abandoned the practice of parliamentary deliberation, but it definitely has deepened it. The legislature has the responsibility of representing the people and keeping the government in check. Under this current regime, the legislature has slowly started to be treated like a mouthpiece for the government, with multiple laws being passed without deliberation. Lack of deliberation and the control of the executive over Parliament have made the functioning of the legislature a means to give a stamp of approval to what the government does. The problem is structural as well; multiple powers have been given to the government, such as summoning Parliament, deciding the agenda and the functions of Parliament and also referring bills to the standing committees. In such a situation where the executive gains control over important matters, parliamentary deliberation becomes of utmost importance.
The executive that treats debate in Parliament as optional or as a formality rather than a constitutional mandate for passing bills risks wiping out the legislative intent that the judiciary and the citizens rely upon to understand the reasoning of the legislature behind the enactments of law. Ambedkar and the members of the Constituent Assembly spent 165 days deliberating every single Article, clause and word of the Constitution. In a democracy, the legitimacy of law lies not only with the majority that enacts it but also with the reasoning behind it. For the judiciary to interpret laws by factoring in the legislative intent behind statutes and for the citizens to hold their representatives accountable, recovering the discipline of deliberation is extremely crucial. The balance of powers needs to be maintained between the executive and the legislature. The decline in the process of parliamentary debate in India has significantly contributed to an increase in the authoritative nature of this government, which imperils the Constitution. Thankfully, people are now at the forefront to save it, and therefore, the powers that be must act in tune with people’s unbending bravery in defence of the constitutional scheme of governance based on deliberation and consultation.