Issue of Black Money haunts winter session of Parliament

ENARADA, New Delhi, November 29, 2014

The winter session of Parliament began on a rather stormy note with the opposition taking on the government on the issue of black money and events within the house reached a point when the Lok Sabha Speaker Mrs. Sumitra Mahajan had to take a tough stance cautioning members not to indulge in acts which did not behove the members.

Taking strong exception to Trinamool Congress members waving umbrellas with slogans against black money, she said “I strongly criticized it,” and that “I don’t want to be stringent and take tough stance and request you (members) to abide by rules.”

The confrontation between the government and the opposition continued despite repeated appeals even by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu that the government was ready to discuss all issues.

However, despite all the din and noise, the government got two bills passed pertaining to labour law and appointment of head of the probe body CBI as the present Director Ranjit Sinha’s term ends on December two.

The passage of the labour law that redefines small factories and frees small companies from furnishing separate labour returns comes two days after Parliament approved amendments to the Apprentices Act, 1961, and so putting in motion the government’s aim of bringing about labour reforms to ease the process of doing business in India despite stiff opposition from left parties, Trinamool Congress and Congress.

On 25 November, Rajya Sabha had approved the draft law after a discussion on black money. With this, a company employing between 10 and 40 workers will be called a small establishment. Earlier a small establishment was one with 10-19 employees.

With the Lok Sabha yet to have a Leader of Opposition and the issue not being resolved since no party has the requisite number of 54 which is the minimum, the Government brought the bill to amend the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act to include leader of the single largest opposition party in Lok Sabha as a member of the CBI chief selection committee, instead of the leader of opposition.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government intends to work through consensus on the appointment of chief of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and wants to strengthen the systems.

The act provides for a three member committee, comprising the prime minister (chairperson), the chief justice of India or a Supreme Court judge nominated by him, and the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, to make recommendations to the central government for appointment of the director.

The amendment changes the provision relating to the leader of opposition, stating that where there is no leader of opposition, the leader of the single largest opposition party would instead be part of the committee clearly opening a door for bringing on board the Congress.

The current Lok Sabha does not have a recognised leader of opposition. Congress is the largest opposition party in the house and Mallikarjun Kharge is its leader.

Jaitley said that the government will accord due respect to the leader of the largest party in the Lok Sabha.

“We will like to have consensus…We want the system to be strengthened,” Jaitley said.

Jaitley’s contention was if the government had used the same word in the bill, there could be a possibility of two parties in the Lok Sabha joining hands and saying they form the largest group.

“I am not giving Trinamool Congress a new idea,” he remarked jocularly.

However, despite these two bills, the issue of black money continued to rock Parliament and the opposition was determined to keep up the attack on the government on this issue contending that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to bring back black money within 100 days and asked “where is the black money now?”

Clearly, the coming week in Parliament too would be focused on the issue of black money as it appears to be the issue foremost in the minds of the opposition parties.

However, as one leader quipped “what about the huge amount of black money circulating within the country.”