📰 India, Pak. hold brigade commander-level meet
Ceasefire implementation discussed
•A brigade commander-level meeting between the Indian and the Pakistani armies was held in J&K’s Poonch district on Friday, the first such meet since the February 25 joint statement by the two countries reaffirming their commitment to abide by the 2003 ceasefire agreement.
•An Army spokesman, in a tweet, said that post the Directors General of Military Operations Understanding 2021, a brigade commander level flag meeting was held between Indian and Pakistan armies at Poonch’s Rawalkot crossing point on Friday “to discuss the implementation mechanism as per the understanding”.
•The meeting comes amid a complete peace maintained by the two armies along the Line of Control (LoC).
•The fresh meeting between the two armies has fuelled speculations of a further widening of the scope of the confidence building measures along the LoC, which also houses two main trading points in Jammu and Kashmir.
•Significantly, Poonch’s Rawalkot is also a trading point, which was closed by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2019 after reports of “terror funding”.
•The top Indian and Pakistani Army officers’ meet comes a day after Army Chief General Manoj Naravane confirmed that silence prevailed on the LoC “for the first time in around five to six years, as not a single shot was fired in March, barring an odd incident”.
•However, Gen. Naravane was quick to add on Thursday that “the terror infrastructure, including terrorist launch-pads on the Pakistani side, remained intact”.
No reason to do so now, says top court.
•The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the sale of electoral bonds before Assembly elections in crucial States like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
•The judgment by a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde said the scheme began in 2018 and continued in 2019 and 2020 without any impediments.
•Chief Justice Bobde, who read out the judgment, said the court found no reason to stall the sale of electoral bonds now.
•The judgment came on an urgent application moved by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, to stay the sale scheduled between April 1 and 10.
•The NGO, also represented by advocate Neha Rathi, voiced serious apprehensions that sale of electoral bonds before Assembly elections would “further increase illegal and illicit funding of political parties through shell companies”.
•Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had said the sale was announced after getting permission from the Election Commission of India (ECI).
•The ECI registered its support for the electoral bonds scheme during the last hearing in the case earlier this week.
•“The Election Commission is supporting electoral bonds or we will go back to the pre-existing situation of donations coming in by cash,” senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the poll body, said.
NGO’s arguments
•The poll body’s stand was quite surprising as the NGO had consistently maintained that both the Reserve Bank of India and the ECI had objected to the electoral bond scheme.
•“Data obtained through RTI has shown that illegal sale windows have been opened in the past to benefit certain political parties... There is a serious apprehension that any further sale of electoral bonds before the upcoming State elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam would further increase illegal and illicit funding of political parties through shell companies,” the NGO had submitted.
•It said the electoral bonds scheme had “opened doors to unlimited political donations, even from foreign companies and thereby legitimising electoral corruption at a huge scale, while at the same time ensuring complete non-transparency in political funding”.
Govt. view
•The government had notified the scheme on January 2, 2018, and defended electoral bonds as an antidote to the influence of black money in politics and anonymous cash donations of huge amounts.
•The Ministry of Finance affidavit in the top court had dismissed the ECI’s version that the invisibility afforded to benefactors was a “retrograde step” and would wreck transparency in political funding.
•The government affidavit had said the shroud of secrecy was a product of “well thought-out policy considerations”. It said the earlier system of cash donations had raised a “concern among the donors that, with their identity revealed, there would be competitive pressure from different political parties receiving donation”.
•The Supreme Court, in the previous hearing on Wednesday, flagged its concern that political parties could misuse crores received as donations through electoral bonds to bankroll violent protests or even terror.
•The court had asked how the government intended to flex “control” on how political parties would use the donations.
📰 Almost 40% of RTI rejections last year did not invoke valid reason: analysis
90% of PMO rejections failed to cite any exemption clause under the Act
•The Centre has only rejected 4.3% of all Right to Information (RTI) requests in 2019-20, the lowest ever rate, according to the Central Information Commission’s annual report. However, almost 40% of these rejections did not include any valid reason, as they did not invoke one of the permissible exemption clauses in the RTI Act, according to an analysis of report data. This includes 90% of rejections by the Prime Minister’s Office.
•Public authorities under the Central government received 13.7 lakh RTI requests in 2019-20, out of which 58,634 were rejected for various reasons. Rejection rates have fallen since the 13.9% rate in 2005-06, and have been steadily trending downwards since the 8.4% spike in 2014-15. In 2019-20, they hit their lowest level so far.
2,000 authorities
•The CIC’s annual report covers more than 2,000 public authorities across the Central government as well as the union territories. An analysis of CIC macro-data from Central ministries by RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak shows that the Home Ministry had the highest rate of rejections, as it rejected 20% of all RTIs received. The Agriculture Ministry’s rejection rate doubled from 2% in 2018-19 to 4% in 2019-20. The Delhi Police and the Army also saw increases in rejection rates.
•The RTI Act allows public authorities to reject RTI requests on a number of grounds, ranging from information which would endanger life and safety to that which involves irrelevant personal information, Cabinet papers, foreign governments, copyrights, or sovereignty, security and intelligence matters. Public authorities are expected to cite the relevant clause of the Act to invoke the exemption.
•In 38.7% of rejections in 2019-20, however, public authorities failed to cite these permissible exemption clauses, and were classified under the ‘Others’ category in the CIC data. This is an increase from the 33% seen the previous year. The Finance Ministry alone rejected more than 10,000 cases (40% of its total RTI rejections) without providing a valid reason under the Act. More than 90% of rejections by the Prime Minister’s Office, the Delhi High Court, the Comptroller and Auditor General, as well as the Ministries of Railways, Road Transport, Food Processing and Panchayati Raj fell into the Others category, Mr. Nayak’s analysis found.
Highest use
•Of the permissible grounds for rejection, Section 8(1)(j) saw the highest use. It permits denial of access to personal information if disclosure has no relationship to any public activity or public interest or is likely to cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual concerned. One third of all permissible rejections invoked this clause.
•Section 24 of the Act which exempts information related to security and intelligence organisations — except allegations of corruption and human rights violations — was also frequently used, with one in five permissible rejections coming under this category.
📰 India, US agree to work constructively to resolve key bilateral trade issues
•India and the United States have agreed to work constructively to resolve key outstanding bilateral trade issues and to take a comprehensive look at ways to expand the trade relationship, the Biden administration has said.
•United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai discussed the important trade and investment relationship between the two countries during her maiden phone call with her Indian counterpart Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
•“They committed to strengthening cooperation on shared objectives and to revitalise engagement through the US-India Trade Policy Forum. They also agreed to work constructively to resolve key outstanding bilateral trade issues and to take a comprehensive look at ways to expand the trade relationship,” the United States Trade Representative (USTR) said in a readout of the call on Thursday.
•Tai, who was confirmed by the Senate only a few days ago, stressed the critical importance of cooperation on a broad set of issues, including digital trade, intellectual property, agriculture, labor, and climate and environment.
•Tai and Goyal agreed to hold the next ministerial-level meeting of the Trade Policy Forum during 2021, the USTR said.
📰 Deadly trail: On Mumbai COVID-19 hospital fire
The Mumbai hospital fire shows that India needs to make public safety an absolute value
•Firefighters keep reminding people that fire is a good servant but a bad master, and the blaze that engulfed a private COVID-19 hospital in Mumbai’s Bhandup area on Thursday night comes as a reminder of how true that axiom is. At least nine people died as flames and smoke spread through the facility housed in a mall. Coming soon after the fire that snuffed out the lives of infants in Bhandara, again in Maharashtra, the tragedy focuses attention on the failure to make fire safety a systemic imperative in public buildings. There is no clarity on where the inferno originated, and whether the hospital housed in a commercial building under ‘extraordinary circumstances’ for COVID-19 patients was equipped for the purpose. The majority of patients were evacuated and admitted to other hospitals. A solatium for the families of the victims has been announced by the State government, and predictable promises to investigate the incident have been made. These steps, though welcome, do little to change the image of decrepitude that marks policies on public safety in the country, and the generally ineffectual nature of inspections and certifications. Fire may be an accident, but the idea of protocols is to prevent it from having a devastating effect on lives and property. It should be pointed out that after a fire in Rajkot last November, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the incident and issued directions, one of which was to task an officer with fire safety for each COVID-19 hospital. States have only themselves to blame, if their officers ignore such guidelines, and avoidable fires claim lives.
•Hospital fires are a distinct entity in the literature on safety, since the presence of incapacitated patients, oxygen-suffused environments, plenty of air-conditioning and lack of sufficient physical space creates a devastating combination when disaster strikes. The National Disaster Management Guidelines of 2016 issued by the NDMA address these characteristics, with recommendations on infrastructural and systemic improvements — from comparative to ultimate safety — to reduce the risk of deadly fires. Yet, it is clear that even some of the basic recommendations, such as the availability of open space to move patients in an emergency, are beyond the scope of legacy buildings created for other purposes. What is feasible is for experts to assess the quality of infrastructure, specifically electrical installations, ensuring the retrofitting of structures with flame retardant materials and triaging of patients to reduce crowding. Recurring infernos should also convince States that they must create scientifically designed public health facilities that meet the needs of populous cities, reversing the policy of leaving this crucial function largely to for-profit entities where the imperative to cure is often pitted against cost and profit concerns.
📰 In-house secrets: On A.P. CM’s charges against Justice Ramana
Supreme Court must waive confidentiality rule and disclose reasons for rejecting A.P. CM’s charges.
•The Supreme Court has dealt with a grave matter concerning issues of judicial propriety with characteristic opaqueness. It has dismissed a complaint from Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, containing explosive allegations against CJI-designate Justice N.V. Ramana, but declined to disclose the findings of an in-house inquiry. The rejection was disclosed on the Court’s website on the day CJI S.A. Bobde recommended Justice Ramana as his successor. Going by procedure, a committee of three judges must have inquired into the charges. The lack of transparency is based on a 2003 judgment of the apex court that any inquiry under this procedure is meant only for “the information and satisfaction” of the CJI, and is not meant for the public. However, this may be an instance when not many will agree with the confidentiality norm. The allegations came from a person holding the high office of CM, and the crux of his grievance was that the A.P. High Court was hostile to him and his regime due to the influence wielded by Justice Ramana. Further, he accused the judge of proximity with Mr. Reddy’s political rivals and alleged involvement of his family members in a land scam that involved prior knowledge that Amaravati was to be declared the State’s capital and speculative buying of land there. There is little to commend the requirement of confidentiality in a probe of this nature, as the dismissal of the complaint ipso facto means that a serving CM has levelled false and motivated charges against a senior Supreme Court judge as well as those in the High Court. Mr. Reddy is surely in contempt of court if the committee found no merit in the allegations that he raised in a signed affidavit.
•Should the confidentiality rule always hold the field? Is it possible to dismiss the allegations without disclosing who were heard as witnesses and what material was considered as evidence? Was Mr. Reddy given an opportunity to substantiate his charges? And, does he get to know the conclusions? The unsavoury charges are bound to come up in some form or the other again. The A.P. government has appealed against a High Court judgment that stayed a police investigation in the Amaravati land issue. Mr. Reddy faces prosecution in corruption cases himself. A key allegation against him is that his animosity towards Justice Ramana arises from an order that a Bench headed by the latter had passed, that cases involving elected representatives be expedited. In a separate development, the High Court had also ordered a CBI probe into social media posts targeting judges. The charges being bandied about are overtly political, and the episode has become unpleasant. Notwithstanding the confidentiality norm laid down for in-house probes, it behoves the Court to demonstrate that justice was both done and was seen to be done.
📰 Dormant Parliament, fading business
The gradual deterioration in Parliament’s functioning has to be stopped if it is to fulfil its constitutional mandate
•The Budget session of Parliament ended on Thursday, two weeks ahead of the original plan, as many political leaders are busy with campaigning for the forthcoming State Assembly elections. This follows the trend of the last few sessions: the Budget session of 2020 was curtailed ahead of the lockdown imposed following the novel coronavirus pandemic, a short 18-day monsoon session ended after 10 days as several Members of Parliament and Parliament staff got affected by COVID-19, and the winter session was cancelled. As a result, the fiscal year 2020-21 saw the Lok Sabha sitting for 34 days (and the Rajya Sabha for 33), the lowest ever. The casualty was proper legislative scrutiny of proposed legislation as well as government functioning and finances. While COVID-19 was undoubtedly a grave matter, there is no reason why Parliament could not adopt remote working and technological solutions, as several other countries did.
No Bill scrutiny
•An important development this session has been the absence of careful scrutiny of Bills. During the session, 13 Bills were introduced, and not even one of them was referred to a parliamentary committee for examination.
•Many high impact Bills were introduced and passed within a few days. The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which is the Bill to change the governance mechanism of Delhi — shifting governance from the legislature and the Chief Minister to the Lieutenant Governor — was introduced on March 15 in the Lok Sabha, passed by that House on March 22 and by Rajya Sabha on the March 24. Another Bill, the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2021, amends the Mines and Minerals Act, 1957 to remove end-use restrictions on mines and ease conditions for captive mines; this Bill was introduced on March 15 and passed by both Houses within a week. A Bill — The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill, 2021 — to create a new government infrastructure finance institution and permit private ones in this sector was passed within three days of introduction. The Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2021, the Bill to increase the limit of foreign direct investment in insurance companies from 49% to 74% also took just a week between introduction and passing by both Houses. In all, 13 Bills were introduced in this session, and eight of them were passed within the session. This quick work should be read as a sign of abdication by Parliament of its duty to scrutinise Bills, rather than as a sign of efficiency.
Consulting House panels
•This development also highlights the decline in the efficacy of committees. The percentage of Bills referred to committees declined from 60% and 71% in the 14th Lok Sabha (2004-09) and the 15th Lok Sabha, respectively, to 27% in the 16th Lok Sabha and just 11% in the current one. Parliamentary committees have often done a stellar job. For example, the committee that examined the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code suggested many changes to make the Code work better, and which were all incorporated in the final law. Similarly, amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act were based on the recommendations of the Committee.
Money Bill classification
•The last few years have seen the dubious practice of marking Bills as ‘Money Bills’ and getting them past the Rajya Sabha. Some sections of the Aadhaar Act were read down by the Supreme Court of India due to this procedure (with a dissenting opinion that said that the entire Act should be invalidated). The Finance Bills, over the last few years, have contained several unconnected items such as restructuring of tribunals, introduction of electoral bonds, and amendments to the foreign contribution act.
•Similarly, this year too, the Finance Bill has made major amendments to the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956. As this is a Money Bill, the Rajya Sabha cannot make any amendments, and has only recommendatory powers. Some of the earlier Acts, including the Aadhaar Act and Finance Act, have been referred to a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. It would be useful if the Court can give a clear interpretation of the definition of Money Bills and provide guide rails within which Bills have to stay to be termed as such.
•During this session, the Union Budget was presented, discussed and passed. The Constitution requires the Lok Sabha to approve the expenditure Budget (in the form of demand for grants) of each department and Ministry. The Lok Sabha had listed the budget of just five Ministries for detailed discussion and discussed only three of these; 76% of the total Budget was approved without any discussion. This behaviour was in line with the trend of the last 15 years, during which period 70% to 100% of the Budget have been passed without discussion in most years.
The missing Deputy Speaker
•A striking feature of the current Lok Sabha is the absence of a Deputy Speaker. Article 93 of the Constitution states that “... The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker….” Usually, the Deputy Speaker is elected within a couple of months of the formation of a new Lok Sabha, with the exception in the 1998-99 period, when it took 269 days to do so. By the time of the next session of Parliament, two years would have elapsed without the election of a Deputy Speaker. The issue showed up starkly this session when the Speaker was hospitalised. Some functions of the Speaker such as delivering the valedictory speech were carried out by a senior member.
•The deterioration in Parliament’s functioning is not a recent phenomenon. For example, the Monsoon Session of 2008 had set some interesting records. That session went on till Christmas, as the government wanted to use a parliamentary rule that a no-confidence motion could not be moved twice within a session; instead of a winter session, the monsoon session was extended with breaks. That session also saw eight Bills being passed in the Lok Sabha within 17 minutes. The following Lok Sabha (2009-14) saw a lot of disruptions to work, with about a third of its scheduled time lost. Some things have improved: over the last few years, we have seen most Bills being discussed in the House and have had less disruptions. However, the scrutiny of Bills has suffered as they are not being referred to committees.
Parliamentary scrutiny is key
•Parliament has the central role in our democracy as the representative body that checks the work of the government. It is also expected to examine all legislative proposals in detail, understand their nuances and implications of the provisions, and decide on the appropriate way forward. In order to fulfil its constitutional mandate, it is imperative that Parliament functions effectively. This will require making and following processes such as creating a system of research support to Members of Parliament, providing sufficient time for MPs to examine issues, and requiring that all Bills and budgets are examined by committees and public feedback is taken. In sum, Parliament needs to ensure sufficient scrutiny over the proposals and actions of the government.
