After President's objection; govt discusses Ordinance issue

New Delhi: With President Pranab Mukherjee voicing his objection to the 'Ordinance route', senior ministers met here on Tuesday to discuss how to ensure that the Ordinances issued recently are followed up with legislative action in the upcoming Budget session next month.

The meeting called by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and six others deliberated upon the implications that some sectors like coal will have if the Ordinances are not followed up by passage of bills in Parliament.

The government has issued at least eight Ordinances including one on raising the FDI limit in the insurance sector from 26 percent to 49 percent and e-auctioning of coal mines.

The meeting significantly took place a day after the President voiced his objection to the 'Ordinance route' used by the government and cautioned it against it.

The meeting discussed issues involving procedures to be followed for replacing Ordinances with Bills and the preparatory measures in the coming session in Parliament likely to begin in the third week of February.

The meeting took note of the possible implications in the event of some of these Ordinances not backed up by Bills in Parliament.

For example there will be a problem in auctioning of the coal mines if the Coal Ordinance is not replaced by the Bill.

"I held and informal meeting with my Cabinet collegues and about nine Ministers were present along with their secretaries to discuss about the procedures to be followed bringing Bills replacing Ordinances like Insurance Bill that is pending thete, Coal Bill and and also Mines Bill, Land acquisition Bill and Citizenship Amendment Bill," Naidu said after the hour-long meeting.

"We discussed these Bills threadbare. I apprised them of the procedures to be followed, the earlier precedence and also the need to give advance notice before hand and getting translated into both languages, circulating copies etc," he added.

Naidu said he tried to "familiarise them with the procedures and ask the secretaries to be ready by the first of the next month. That was the purpose of the meeting today."

Coal Minister Piyush Goel, Rural Development Minister Rao Birebdra Singh, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, MOS for Surface Transport Radha Krishnan, Steel and Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Law Minister Sadananda Gowda and all senior officials of the concerned ministries were present in the meeting.

As per the rules, an Ordinance has to be converted into legislation within 42 days of commemencement of Parliament session else it lapses and an Ordinance can be repromulgated only three times.