📰 ‘Army working to deal with drone threat’
Gen. Naravane says talks are on with China at various levels, which has helped build trust
•Army chief Gen. Manoj Naravane on Thursday said that with the easy availability of drones, they would be increasingly used in all sorts of combat, both by state and non-state actors, and capabilities were being developed to deal with them.
•On the Ladakh stand-off, he said the situation on the ground had been normal since February and talks were on with China at different levels that had helped build trust between the two sides.
•His comments came after explosions last Sunday at the Jammu Air Force station, which were believed to have been carried out using drones, the first such attack in the country. “We are seized of this problem. We have put in place certain measures. All our troops on the ground have been sensitised for this evolving threat and we are developing capabilities to deal with that, whether by state-sponsored or by states themselves. We are developing capabilities to deal with the drone threat both in the kinetic and non-kinetic realm,” Gen. Naravane said at a webinar organised by Global Counter-Terrorism Council in association with the Department of Defence Production.
•He stated that they were catering to both the offensive use of drones and defensive measures or the counter-drone systems to prevent attacks on any critical installations whether by state or non-state actors.
•On the stand-off in Eastern Ladakh, he noted that the situation had been normal since the disengagement in February from the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso (lake) as well as the Kailash ranges. “Since then, both sides have strictly adhered in letter and spirit to the disengagement that was agreed upon,” he observed.
LoC situation
•The two sides were engaged at different levels — political, diplomatic and military. “This has helped build trust between the two sides and going ahead we are sure we will be able to resolve all the remaining issues,” he said.
•On the situation along the Line of Control (LoC), he said that since the ceasefire understanding between the Directors-General of Military Operations of India and Pakistan in February, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir had seen improvement. There had been little to no infiltration, he said.
•Stressing the need to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI)-related technologies, he stated that this would require simplified procedures. “Unfortunately, this has been one of our biggest stumbling blocks. The transition to the digital age is contrarian to Defence Procurement Procedure and Defence Procurement Manual mindsets.” In order to harness technologies like AI, exploit the depth in IT and realise the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, we need to shed old mindsets and make our procedures more flexible and adaptive, he added.
EU begins ‘Green Pass’ for those with authorised jabs to travel among 27 nations
•At least nine countries in Europe have given recognition to the Covishield vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India, informed sources have said. The confirmation came on Thursday when the European Union started the "Green Pass" facility which will allow travellers vaccinated with an authorised set of vaccines to travel within the EU zone covering 27 countries. The recognition by the nine countries is a "national" move by the states and not by the European Union headquartered in Brussels.
•The list of EU Member States that have recognised Covishield as a valid vaccine includes Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain. That apart, Estonia has confirmd that it will recognise all the vaccines authorised by Government of India for travel of Indians to Estonia, said an informed source.
•Switzerland, not a EU member, too allows Covishield as Schengen state.
•Supporting the move by Germany, ambassador Walter J. Lindner said, "Confirming that a double shot of Covishield is fully recognised by Germany as valid proof of anti-COVID vaccination." Germany however has a travel ban in place for Indians as India has been recognised as a "virus variant country".
•"This (confirmation) does nevertheless not modify existing travel or visa restrictions for travellers from areas of concern/ virus variant areas," said Mr. Lindner clarifying the German position on travel from India.
•The clearance by the nine European countries came on a day when the "Green Pass" was introduced by the EU which is meant for travel within 27 Member States of the European Union. The clearance by the nine countries however is unlikely to translate into an automatic clearance of Covishield as an equivalent to the "Green Pass" which recognises Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty, Moderna’s Spikevax, Oxford-AstraZeneca's Vaxzevria and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) that created the authorised list is yet to include Covishield, which is based on AstraZeneca formula, as an acceptable vaccine.
•The clearance of Covishield by nine European countries showed that some EU Member States are making individual policies that are suitable to their health and international requirements. For example, Air France, in its website, said as per French government's quarantine protocols Indian passengers who have taken doses cleared by EMA (Pfizer-BioNTech's Comirnaty, Moderna's Spikevax, Vaxzevria of Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen by Johnson & Johnson) are required to undergo 7 days of "mandatory quarantine".
•"These passengers must present a Covid-19 vaccination certificate demonstrating that at least 4 weeks have elapsed since the first dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or 2 weeks have elapsed sincec the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccine, or since the first dose of these vaccines if the passenger holds proof that they previously have been infected with COVID-19," said Air Frace laying down the domestic requirement which places additional conditions on even those Indian passengers who have taken doses of the vaccines meant for the "Green Pass" from the EU.
📰 WHO says all COVID-19 vaccines approved by it must be recognised for travel
Vaccine divide should not widen, says global health agency.
•The World Health Organization said Thursday that any COVID-19 vaccines it has authorised for emergency use should be recognised by countries as they open up their borders to inoculated travellers.
•The move could challenge Western countries to broaden their acceptance of two apparently less effective Chinese vaccines, which the UN health agency has licensed but most European and North American countries have not.
•In addition to vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, the WHO has also given the green light to the two Chinese jabs, made by Sinovac and Sinopharm.
•In its aim to restore travel across Europe, the European Union said in May that it would only recognise people as vaccinated if they had received shots licensed by the European Medicines Agency — although it is up to individual countries if they wish to let in travellers who have received other vaccines, including Russia’s Sputnik V. The EU drug regulator is currently considering licensing China’s Sinovac vaccine, but there is no timeline on a decision.
•“Any measure that only allows people protected by a subset of WHO-approved vaccines to benefit from the reopening of travel ... would effectively create a two-tier system, further widening the global vaccine divide and exacerbating the inequities we have already seen in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines,” a WHO statement said Thursday. “It would negatively impact the growth of economies that are already suffering the most.”
•The WHO said such moves are “undermining confidence in life-saving vaccines that have already been shown to be safe and effective.” In its reviews of the two Chinese vaccines, the UN health agency said both were found to significantly reduce the risk of hospitalisations and deaths.
•The two Chinese shots are “inactivated” vaccines, made with killed coronavirus, whereas the Western-made shots are made with newer technologies that instead target the “spike” protein that coats the surface of the coronavirus.
•Although Western countries have largely relied on vaccines made in the U.S. and Europe, such as Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca, many developing countries have used the Chinese-made shots.
•Earlier this year, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that the effectiveness of its home-grown shots was low. Numerous countries that have used millions of doses of the two Chinese shots, including the Seychelles and Bahrain, have seen COVID-19 surges even with relatively high levels of immunisation.
📰 Relief and recompense: On ex gratia for the pandemic-hit
The judiciary did well to assert the rights of pandemic-hit workers and families
•It is a matter of relief and satisfaction that the Supreme Court has prodded the Union government to perform its statutory duty of fixing a compensation for the families of those who lost their kin to the COVID-19 pandemic. The order comes close on the heels of a slew of directions on registering the country’s vast unorganised workforce and its army of inter-State labourers on a national database and ensuring that none of them went hungry. On the issue of making an ex gratia payment to those affected by the pandemic, a notified disaster under the Disaster Management Act, the Centre initially took the untenable stand that it lacked the financial resources to compensate for every COVID-19 death. However, it later admitted that it was not the adequacy of resources that made it avoid any compensation, but rather its decision to prioritise expenditure in response to the pandemic. It is indeed true that unlike more frequent disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes and floods, a pandemic that has hit every country is not a one-time calamity, but an ongoing and prolonged phenomenon. However, the Court has rightly found that this was not reason enough for the Government to evade its duty to include ex gratia assistance on account of loss of life in its guidelines for “minimum standards of relief” to those hit by the disaster. The Court correctly did not fix a compensation amount for each death, leaving it to a policy decision by the National Disaster Management Authority and the Centre.
•In an earlier order, the Court dealt with the need for comprehensive registration of all inter-State and unorganised workers in the country. It is unfortunate that it needed a pandemic, and the resulting humanitarian, social and economic crisis for millions of workers, to give an impetus to the process. The Supreme Court, while disposing of suo motu proceedings on the miseries of migrant labourers, has now fixed a deadline of December 31 this year for all States and Union Territories to complete the process. The Centre has been given a deadline of July 31 to make available a portal for its National Database for Unorganised Workers (NDUW) project so that it may be used for registering unorganised workers across the country. However, the Union government, which was directed to make such a common module available to the States as far back as in August 2018, claimed the work on developing the portal was affected due to the fallout of the pandemic. The Court has pulled up the Union Labour Ministry for its “apathy and lackadaisical attitude” and directed that the process of registration should begin by July 31. The verdicts open up the possibility that the inter-State and unorganised workers will at last be able to reap the benefits of welfare laws enacted for them. These interventions signify the rejuvenation and assertion of a court seen as somewhat reticent until recently.
📰 What lies ahead for IBC and stressed assets resolution?
The size of the haircut should not be the gauge of the success of the IBC process
•The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), notified in 2016, has been the key mechanism for addressing corporate distress and the accumulation of bad loans in the financial sector since its implementation. Recent National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) rulings have also put the spotlight on the IBC. In a conversation moderated by Suresh Seshadri, Aparna Ravi and R.K. Bansal discuss questions about the effectiveness of the process and the road ahead. Edited excerpts:
It has been five years since the IBC came into force. How has it fared and what are its biggest challenges?
•R.K. Bansal: One basic difference between us and other countries is that our companies are mainly promoter-owned and owners run the companies. In most of the developed countries, companies are run by professionals and the ownership is widely spread. Here, because it is owned and controlled as well as managed by mostly the same people, that creates a problem in taking over the asset.
•I think, overall, over the last five years, it has done quite well. And Section 29A [of the IBC], which was introduced by the government later, also helped in resolving some of these problems.
•I would say the recoveries and resolutions have been quite good, quite fast, compared to other measures available to the lenders. Today, on average, one can see maybe about three years [for recoveries and resolutions] as compared to an earlier timeline of five years, six years or more. But there are infrastructure issues. We need more NCLTs and we need more members. There are a lot of vacancies, a lot of delays in appointments, NCLAT [National Company Law Appellate Tribunal] benches are few. So, that is one area perhaps that we need to strengthen. The second issue is that a lot of these are very old cases — what we call stock of NPAs [Non-Performing Assets]. So, once this round is over, in future, perhaps, there will be fewer cases and we should be able to take care. The Act will do better actually, if not many cases go to the NCLT. Because the fear of losing the company under Section 49A will push the promoters to find a resolution.
•Aparna Ravi: The initial version of the IBC that came into effect in December 2016 is quite different from what we have today. But around this whole issue about the NCLT’s functioning itself — I think there have been a lot of delays in implementation, whether it’s in terms of approvals, having an application admitted itself. In some situations, an application is filed for admission and it takes almost a year to actually be admitted. And even things like the approval of a resolution plan... The resolution plan that was approved for Jet Airways recently was actually approved by the Creditors’ Committee in October 2020. The NCLT has a very limited role: it just needs to approve the resolution plan based on whether the plan complies with applicable law. But it [resolution plan for Jet Airways] was only approved in June 2021. These kinds of delays are a significant issue with the implementation of the code, coupled with the fact that even though the Supreme Court has clarified a number of legal positions in the last few years around the IBC, it doesn’t seem like in some situations the tribunals have laid to rest these positions. They still allow these same issues to be litigated again. This seems to me the biggest implementation challenge with the code itself.
There are concerns about the extent of haircuts that banks and financial creditors are having to take in order to achieve resolution. Are these concerns valid or misplaced?
•R.K. Bansal: I would not say they are misplaced, but I would say we need to understand the context. The haircut figure looks large in some cases because of many reasons. I remember the first case approved by the NCLT was Synergies-Dooray, where the haircut was 94%. But at that time this was not prominent as this was a smaller case. Now, why does it happen? The claims filed are of three types: secured lenders, operational creditors, unsecured lenders, and then you have a lot of guarantee obligations of that company. Now, that guarantee obligation sometimes makes the dues multiple times that of a normal case. I have seen some cases where the total dues may be ₹500 crore, but because of the guarantee, the total dues claimed are from ₹6,000 crore to ₹7,000 crore. So, when the ₹500 crore company goes for resolution and you get a plan for ₹200 crore, it is 40%, so the haircut is 60%. But then if you compare this ₹200 crore figure with ₹7,000 crore-₹8,000 crore including guarantees, the haircut will look very large. And this happens typically in holding companies, which are the main companies and which have given the guarantees — whether it was OMML, Lanco Infra, or even recently Videocon, I mean those type of cases where there are a lot of assets, a lot of companies in the group, and guarantee has been given for many of these companies by this company. So, now, the question is haircut is relevant in the context of what is the asset, what are the debts, what are the guarantees, what are the other group assets. Now, out of the first 12 cases filed by the banks in 2017, even today, five got the resolution, which were steel cases because steel is a commodity sector and the assets are good. So, you got very good value in those. Out of five also their percentages are different, of course: Essar Steel or Bhushan Steel got quite a good value, then Bhushan Power and Steel somewhat lower, and Monnet was the least in those five cases. Then, you had a company called Binani Cement which was not out of the 12 but you got almost mor
e than 100% because the asset was good. Then you had two, three cases which are going into liquidation, so banks may not get much — the haircut could be as high as 99% or 95%. Like Lanco Infra, which was a holding company again, or an EPC [engineering procurement and construction] company like Era Infra or Jyothi Structures.
•Finally, it depends on the company and its asset. You will get value if the asset is good. Some businesses would have failed, like many of the EPC companies, where haircuts are very high. Because basically in an EPC company there are hardly any assets, except some equipment. And some of them have diverted funds. Some of them lost money in contracts, government dues are there, government departments or entities actually withheld dues, levied a lot of penalties because of the delays. I think you need to understand that.
•Aparna Ravi: I don’t think the size of the haircut itself is really a measure of the success of IBC. If the process itself is to improve, what we need to think about is how to attract more buyers or a more diverse range of strategic buyers to be willing to bid for assets, and submit resolution plans under the code. And I think a big part of that is improving the process in terms of minimising the delays, increasing the predictability. Those are issues that do need to be ironed out.
Is there something, especially from the legal side, that can be done to improve the process?
•Aparna Ravi: One thing is, of course, adherence to the timelines by all the stakeholders. The other area, from a legal point of view, is around who can submit a resolution plan itself. And I think on that Mr. Bansal too had a number of views on Section 29A that prevents promoters, in a lot of cases, from submitting resolution plans. I understand the rationale behind this, and there are some restrictions under Section 29A that make a lot of sense — for example, a wilful defaulter probably should not be allowed to submit a resolution plan under the IBC. But some of the other restrictions such as one on [a promoter] who has had NPAs for over a year, or who’s had a personal guarantee that has been invoked... in those cases I think that would result in a lot of the promoters of most companies not being able to submit resolution plans. There has been a relaxation which allows MSMEs to have greater flexibility in terms of promoters being able to submit resolution plans for these companies. This is something that can be considered just to lay the floor open to a larger number of resolution plans. Of course, nobody is required to accept a resolution plan. There needs to be a fair process where many of the processes are open to a number of people. Allowing certain relaxations to Section 29A could be helpful.
Do you see a larger role for the proposed national ARC in stressed assets resolution?
•R.K. Bansal: The national ARC (Asset Reconstruction Company), or so called ‘bad bank’, should help. It’s a good thing because it’s a one-time exercise, a good clean-up exercise. Because a lot of these cases don’t have a great resolution plan or they don’t have great value left. So, many of these cases perhaps need to be warehoused for some time. If I try to sell a power plant today in thermal power, we may get a value of only ₹2 crore per megawatt, while the country will still need power and a power plant requires ₹5 crore-₹6 crore per megawatt just to build up because there is excess capacity, because there is a problem in the thermal power sector. The other point is that there are not many strategic investors. An asset will have interest or value only if there are more people who are ready to buy, like say the steel cases, where there were a number of suitors. But today in power, there’s hardly one or two people in India who will be interested in buying power assets, and typically foreign players don’t buy thermal power because of the coal issue and social issues. So, what happens is, today you need to wait for some time for some of these assets. You have to work along, then your recovery will be far, far better. A national ARC will give the time to the banks to resolve these cases over a period of time.
Besides strengthening the IBC infrastructure, how else could resolution be expedited?
•Aparna Ravi: What we do see is that sometimes there isn’t an appointment made for these benches for some time... there’s one judicial member who is in charge of two benches. Some of those NCLT benches only function on certain days of the week because that’s when the judicial member or the technical member are both available, so definitely there needs to be capacity building in terms of NCLT. It’s also worth considering that the IBC cases are not the only mandate of the NCLT. They also consider various cases under the Companies Act such as mergers or oppression and mismanagement cases. A different point is also to remember that the IBC is not the only solution for resolving stress. It’s important to look at a range of different options both within and outside the IBC for resolving distress, and especially through these pre-IBC mechanisms, one-time settlements, restructuring packages. It’s important to look at them all as part of the spectrum. Especially in cases where there is some consensus with the debtor and the debtor and the creditors, these pre-IBC resolutions may work very well as well.
📰 Envisioning the post-pandemic smart city
It is clear that the pathway for ‘smart cities’, and also other towns not on the map, needs to change
•Six years ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government started a journey of urban development based on the belief that a select set of cities across the country could be ‘transformed’ and made smart, after they were chosen through a competition among the States. The Centre would support the chosen projects and others would learn from them.
•The idea of a transformation is indicated in BJP’s manifesto for the 2014 election, where, in a reference to the squalor that has traditionally marked cities and towns, the party declared that they should “no longer remain a reflection of poverty and bottlenecks. Rather they should become symbols of efficiency, speed and scale”. This racy vision laid the foundation for a programme to create 100 smart cities.
The general concept
•Globally, there is no uniform definition of smart cities, and the most common features of such urban spaces are derived from concepts in the global north. They generally have a technocentric vision, with sensors everywhere, smart homes, high levels of connectivity, massive and ubiquitous data collection by various agencies, and a continuous flow of useful information to citizens. All this, the reasoning goes, can help governments allocate resources optimally and take timely decisions to raise efficiency and improve standards of living.
•India’s cities have well-known infrastructure deficits, inadequate water supply, waste management, sewerage and transport arrangements, high levels of pollution and, with climate change, frequent extremes of floods and drought. The answer to these, the Smart Cities Mission (https://smartcities.gov.in/), has been fashioned as an amalgam of upgraded civic services and expensive showpiece projects in the chosen cities, with the investments heavily influenced by the Centre.
Now, a health focus
•Before a complete critique of the expensive programme could emerge, COVID-19 interrupted the lives of cities, confining people indoors for long periods, disrupting economic processes and paralysing vibrant urban life. As the pandemic peaked, thousands had to desperately look for emergency medical care in scarce health facilities, while the flashy smart developments built for leisure and shopping remained shuttered.
•Unsurprisingly, when the Smart City Awards 2020 were declared recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs gave one component of the scheme, the Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs), a health focus. These centres, of which 70 are operational, functioned as “war rooms” for COVID-19, and, combined with “other smart infrastructure developed under the mission, helped cities in fighting the pandemic through information dissemination, improving communication, predictive analysis and supporting effective management” (https://bit.ly/3hmZZE0), it said.
•This is a remarkable image of efficiency, but it would seem incongruous with the lived reality in several States and the national capital during the second wave of the pandemic, as people struggled for information and access to medical care. Yet, one of the States that suffered severely, Uttar Pradesh, shot to the top for implementation metrics of the smart cities projects (https://bit.ly/3yaBbFX), apparently because it achieved more than what was envisaged in the centrally-supported schemes. It added its own set of ‘State smart cities’. The fact that U.P., a crucial BJP-ruled State scarred by the pandemic, is bound for elections next year must, of course, be treated as a coincidence. Indore and Surat jointly won top city-level awards, while Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu also won State awards.
Infrastructural convergence
•Over the years, Smart Cities Mission projects converged with other infrastructure programmes such as AMRUT, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, the PMAY (Urban), the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, for housing. Some also get support from international agencies to adopt best practices on mobility and transport, energy and reducing carbon emissions. The latest official count shows that 5,924 Mission projects worth ₹1,78,500 crore have been tendered, indicating the scale of investments. This is in tune with some estimates that globally, 90% of urban development by mid-century will take place in developing countries.
•A focus on basic urban infrastructure prioritised by elected representatives was part of national policy since the Third Plan period (1961-66), although the focus shifted to smaller towns away from Bombay and Calcutta in the Fourth Plan (1969-74). After decades of slow experiments, the post-COVID-19 era will sharpen the question of how cities must evolve.
•The Danish urban design expert, Jan Gehl, who is averse to the idea of smart cities and “silly gimmicks”, speaks of the universal values of a city as one that is a meeting place of people, inviting them to spend time, walk, bike, and roam around public, semi-public or private gardens. Pedestrianisation over motorisation is also a marker of a good city.
•Although they try to accommodate some of these elements, India’s smart city plans cannot really aspire for a structural shift, in which the movement of people gets priority over vehicles. In fact, extending the green logic would imply a freeze on all diversion of wetlands and commons for any other development, creating new urban gardens and water bodies, and doing a climate change audit for every piece of infrastructure planned. A green and blue city would mean less destructive flooding, more water to harvest and lower peak temperatures — all of it at very little expense.
Use for the commons
•Cities could be elegant, healthy and smart after the pandemic if they apportion the available road space for bicycles, which exemplify safe travel and can complement expanded public transport when commuters return in big numbers to bus and urban rail. This is consistent with the pan-city goals of the Smart City Mission, but requires State governments to take resolute action. Bicycles represent the ideal urban travel bubble and must be moved from the margins to the centre of policy.
•Pedestrianisation, biking and harmonious opportunities for street vending created by allocating more of the commons would also be fully democratic and address the criticism that smart city planning ignores the informality that marks India’s urban spaces. This is valid for both cities being retrofitted with facilities and those being developed as greenfield sites. Can more of the commons be turned into farmers’ markets, vending grounds and craft centres?
•None of this detracts from essential modernisation, such as deployment of multiple sensors to gauge air, noise and water pollution, provision of electronic delivery of citizen services, whether online or in a government office, intelligent public transport, expansion of renewable energy. Recovery of valuable materials from waste remains a lost opportunity even in the biggest cities. It would, however, mean a shift away from flyovers, underpasses and cheap parking lots that serve far fewer citizens.
•For citizens, real time control rooms can be meaningful only if they can have a good public dashboard of information. In COVID-19 times, this means access to health alerts, vaccinations, hospital beds and topical advice, rounded off with data on pollution, rainfall, congestion and so on.
•Democratising smart cities planning has to ensure every section of society has a voice in the process, and not merely those who have digital access. Pressure to frame projects, however, often cuts out many, and even elected representatives get short shrift.
•The Housing Ministry said last year that it had no plan to issue a report card for the 100 chosen smart cities, but was using the Ease of Living Index measured through a public perception survey. Such measurements can be heavily biased if they are not broad based. Quite tellingly, out of 32.2 lakh citizens in 111 cities who participated in a survey, the online channel which could be accessed through a QR code or website attracted 31,05,481 items of feedback (https://bit.ly/3xmSlQE and https://bit.ly/3hlVkSR).
•The pandemic has come as a remarkable opportunity to review the paradigm of smart cities, and to steer the course of hundreds of other towns that are not on the map. They should be helped to frame their plans around people and nature, to learn from mistakes and to avoid expensive technological solutionism.
📰 Delhi’s lame duck Assembly
The GNCTD (Amendment) Act prohibits the exercise of free speech in the Assembly and its committees
•The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD)(Amendment) Act, 2021 has been extensively criticised as a retrograde law that turns the clock back on representative democracy. The bulk of criticism has been focused on the reduced autonomy of the elected government and the consequent vesting of several crucial powers in the unelected Lieutenant Governor, who is the representative of the Union government. This is largely attributable to public consciousness of the regular skirmishes between the elected government and the Lieutenant Governor. However, what deserves equal condemnation is the Act’s assault on the functioning of Delhi’s Legislative Assembly, which has been sought to be reduced to a lame duck.
A delicate balance
•When the GNCTD Act was enacted in 1992, the Legislative Assembly was given the power to regulate its own procedure, as well as the conduct of its business. This was subject to very limited exceptions concerning financial matters and scrutiny over the Lieutenant Governor’s discretionary role. This sought to realise a delicate balance reflecting Delhi’s unique constitutional position: neither full state nor a centrally governed Union Territory. However, the Amendment Act drives a coach and horses through this scheme. Now, Delhi’s Assembly has no more functional independence worth its name. Its standards of procedure and conduct of business have been firmly tethered to that of the Lok Sabha, depriving Delhi’s elected MLAs of an effective say in how their Assembly should be run. Even more insidiously, the Amending Act prohibits the Assembly from making any rule enabling either itself or its committees to consider any issue concerned with “the day-to-day administration of the capital” or “conduct inquiries in relation to administrative decisions”. This is rounded off by providing that any rule made before the Amendment Act came into effect that runs counter to this formulation shall be void.
•The most insidious impact of this shall be to the exercise of free speech in the Assembly and its committees. A situation where an elected Assembly is prohibited by law from discussing matters concerning the day-to-day administration of its own territory is one where it is dead on arrival. How can the Assembly be expected to perform its most basic legislative function — that of holding the executive to account — if it cannot guarantee itself the ability to freely discuss the goings on in the capital? What is the use of electing MLAs and endowing them with legislative privilege if they are unable to discuss the governance of the very constituents who elected them?
Impact on committees
•A note of alarm must also be sounded for the effect on the functioning of the Assembly’s committees. These committees are usually inured from the sound and fury of political theatre that pervade sittings of the whole Assembly. Away from the glare of cameras, cooler heads usually prevail and important work gets done. Inquiries are conducted, witnesses and documents are examined, and reports on relevant issues are written. The deliberations and inputs of committees often pave the way for intelligent legislative action. In a way, they act as the eyes and ears for the whole House, which has neither the time nor the expertise to scrutinise issues in depth. It would be impossible for committees to perform this function without the power to conduct inquiries. It is true that many of these inquiries are bound to be broad-based and roving in nature, and may even lead to legislative dead ends. But to pre-emptively injunct a committee from conducting an inquiry “in relation to the administrative decisions” (an extremely broad exception) completely negates the ability of committees to function effectively as the Assembly’s advisors and agents. The quality of legislative work emanating from the Assembly is thus ultimately bound to suffer.
•This clinical purge of its critical legislative functions has rendered the Delhi Assembly a ‘legislature’ in name only, unable both to articulate the concerns of the electorate and hold the political executive to account. Surely, Delhi’s voters deserve better than that.
