Lok Sabha passes Uttarakhand budget, Opposition questions logic

With less than 24 hours to go for the floor test in Uttarakhand, the Lok Sabha on Monday passed the four-month budget for the state, with the Centre insisting that it was a constitutional requirement even as several Opposition parties and experts questioned the logic behind the move.

The Opposition Congress, whose government led by Harish Rawat had been dismissed in March this year, staged a walkout to protest the government action of piloting the appropriation bill. It was passed by a voice vote in its absence.

Piloting the bill, finance minister Arun Jaitley said Parliament has to pass the bill “irrespective of what happens on May 10” as it had made provisions for expenditure in the state since April 1, 2016.

The move was slammed by constitutional expert and former LS Secretary-General P.D.T. Achary who told this newspaper that the bill was passed by the Uttarakhand Assembly through voice vote, which was initiated by the Speaker, and whose word is final. He termed the entire exercise of the Centre riding roughshod over the Assembly Speaker’s verdict (of passing the appropriation bill) and getting the state’s budget passed in Parliament as unconstitutional. “The Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker had passed the appropriation bill through voice vote, and that is how it is normally done. The Centre was not correct in claiming that the appropriation bill was not passed and, therefore, the exercise of getting it passed in Parliament does not hold any constitutional sanctity,” Mr Achary informed. Responding to criticism by various parties for imposing President’s Rule in Uttarakhand, Mr Jaitley put up a stout defence, arguing that the state would have otherwise plunged into a constitutional crisis.

Though he agreed with views of several members that the decisions of Speakers could not be subject to judicial approval, he wondered what will happen if a Speaker declared the majority as minority and vice-versa, as was done by, according to him, by the Uttarakhand Speaker.