Plea In Supreme Court Seeks To Publish Draft Legislations Before Introducing In Legislature To Ensure Public Discussion, Feedback

The plea by BJP leader and Supreme Court advocate Ashwini Upadhyay prays for a direction to the governments to comply with the decisions taken in the meeting of the Committee of the Secretaries held on 10.1.2014 under Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary on Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, in order to ensure wide public discussion and feedback. In view of the recommendations of the National Advisory Council, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution and comparative international practices, the Government of India had conceived of a Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy in 2014 which was made mandatory for the Ministry or Department concerned:

"2. Department/Ministry concerned should publish/place in public domain the draft legislation or at least the information that may inter alia include brief justification for such legislation, essential elements of proposed legislation, its broad financial implications, and an estimated assessment of impact of such legislation on environment, fundamental rights, lives and livelihoods of the concerned/affected people, etc. Such details may be kept in the public domain for a minimum period of thirty days for being proactively shared with the public in such manner as may be specified by the Department/Ministry concerned."

The petition also seeks a direction to the Centre to ensure that all the Draft and Final Legislations are duly published on the government websites and put in the public domain in all regional languages, listed in Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.

It is submitted that Guidelines for Indian Government Websites, prepared by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and adopted by the Department of Personnel and Training and the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, states as follows:

"India is a country with diverse cultures and as many as 22 languages. One of the major users of Government websites are common citizens with highly diverse demographic profiles...Thus, even though Government websites are accessible, they are still not usable. Hence, there is a need to put the information in Regional languages. Depending on the nature of the content and its prospective usage, content should be translated in desired languages and should be a part of the same website with prominent links."

"In today's democratic process with the advent of advanced media and technology, it is no longer appropriate for the Governments, both Central and State, to suddenly pass laws overnight with scarcely any legislative debate and no wider consultation at all. Recent events of the farm protests show the consequences of how the message of law is lost in the legal jargon and the lack of such a mandatory discussion prior to the bills being tabled in legislature", urges the petition.

The petition states that even when it comes to draft subordinate legislation, S. 23(1) of the General Clauses Act provides that there must be advance information of draft for knowledge of people likely to be affected. It is submitted that such a requirement should apply with greater effect to the laws themselves that affect our rights. Eventually, it is the legislature that will take a final call on the law, and it would only provide a smoother process for the views of citizens in observance of Articles 14 and 21 to be considered by people representatives.

The plea advances that it is imperative that at least as far as Central laws are concerned, proposed laws are translated into regional languages and published on website at least 60 days prior to introducing it in Parliament so that the citizens have full understanding of what is to bind them. "With the proportion of populace having English as a native language being a modest 0.01% and as many States having less than 50% of their population speaking Hindi, it is necessary that the role of regional languages in the Eighth Schedule be fully acknowledged in the highest law making function of the country", reads the plea.