When the government referred the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024, after introducing it in the Lok Sabha to a joint parliamentary committee for scrutiny, the proposed legislation joined the league of the few bills that have been forwarded by the Modi dispensation to parliamentary committees.
It is learnt that the politically sensitive nature of the Waqf Amendment Bill and a nudge from some of its allies led to the government referring the bill to the joint parliamentary committee.
The government agreeing to send the Waqf bill to a parliamentary committee was a departure from the trend of an increasingly fewer number of bills being referred to parliamentary panels in recent years.
In the previous Lok Sabha, which was the 17th edition of the house of the people, less than 20 per cent of bills were referred to committees, according to a study conducted by the Parliamentary Research Service.
A total of 16 per cent of the bills were referred to committees for detailed scrutiny. According to the study done by the PRS, this was lower than the corresponding figures for the previous three Lok Sabhas. Between 2019 and 2024, four bills were sent to joint parliamentary committees, and one bill was referred to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha in the previous term of the Modi government. In all, 179 bills were passed in the previous Lok Sabha, and 58 per cent of the bills were passed within two weeks of introduction.
As many as 35 per cent of the bills were passed with less than one hour of discussion in the Lok Sabha. The corresponding figure for the Rajya Sabha was 34 per cent.
In the 16th Lok Sabha, 28 per cent of the bills were referred to parliamentary committees. The number was much higher during the term of the UPA government.
Between 2004 and 2009, the first term of the Manmohan Singh regime, 60 per cent of the bills were referred to parliamentary panels. During the 15th Lok Sabha, which was also the extremely troubled second term of the UPA government, the number of bills sent to parliamentary committees for scrutiny rose to 71 per cent.
