Speaker’s Power to Certify Money Bills

In recent months, the Aadhaar bill was passed as a Money bill. Since, it was named as a Money bill, the Lok Sabha passed the bill rejecting the amendments suggested by the Rajya Sabha. This created a controversy. We note that only the Speaker has the power to certify a bill as a money bill. However, there are no mechanisms to define if any bill was erroneously certified as Money Bill by Speaker. This has raised a demand for checks and balances on this {almost absolute} power of Speaker of Lok Sabha.

Important Facts

  • Money Bills are a kind of financial bills about which you may read here. These bills can be introduced only in Lok Sabha.
  • Once passed by Lok Sabha by simple majority; their fate in Rajya Sabha has no impacts on their becoming a law.
  • Rajya Sabha can only make recommendations on the bill and send it back to Lok Sabha within 14 days of receiving it from Lok Sabha, failing which the bill will be considered to be passed by the Rajya Sabha.
  • The Lok Sabha is under no obligation to accept the recommendations made by the Rajya Sabha.

Questions & Answers

  • What is Constitutional mandate regarding power of speaker to certify money bills? Did framers of constitution missed something while giving such powers?
  • What is the scope of judicial review of Speaker’s decision regarding certification of bills as money bill?
  • Since power of judiciary in this context is limited, can there be any alternate mechanism to put checks on speaker?
What is Constitutional mandate regarding power of speaker to certify money bills? Did framers of constitution missed something while giving such powers?

Article 110 (3) in the constitution provides that the decision of the speaker of the Lok Sabha shall be final in case a question arises regarding whether a bill is a money bill or not.

The framers of the constitution had taken the idea of providing authority to Speaker to certify the bills as money bills from British Law. However, Speaker in UK and Speaker in India work differently in this context. In UK, the speaker is needed to consult two senior members {one ruling side, one opposition usually} appointed by the committee from amongst the senior MPs. However, in India speaker makes the decision in his / her own capacity.

What is the scope of judicial review of Speaker’s decision regarding certification of bills as money bill?

The scope of judicial review in this matter has been discussed in the light of article 122. This article says that courts are NOT allowed to inquire into the proceedings of the parliament on ground of any alleged procedural irregularity. The clause 2 of the same article says that no officer or member of the parliament can be subject to jurisdiction of any court in respect to the exercise of the powers conferred upon him / her by the constitution. We note here that the powers of Speaker had been commented upon by Supreme Court regarding disqualification of the members. In that matter, the court observed that the parliamentary proceedings which are found to suffer from substantive illegality or unconstitutionality, cannot be held protected from judicial scrutiny by article 122. On this basis, some argue that the power of Lok Sabha speaker to pass and certify a bill as a money bill is certainly not immune from judicial review, provided it has substantial illegality angle.

But the question is – to what extent an action is procedural irregularity? And at what extent, it becomes Procedural illegality? In case of a decision making regarding money bills, it is not possible to prove illegality or unconstitutionality. Thus, Supreme Court cannot examine whether the Speaker gave the certificate correctly. The extreme case is when a bill not even distantly related to money bill is certified as money bill.

Since power of judiciary in this context is limited, can there be any alternate mechanism to put checks on speaker?

Some have suggested that although Court cannot examine whether the Speaker gave the certificate correctly or not; but then Rajya Sabha should be enabled to scrutinize such decision. Further, to ward off the controversies and debates, Lok Sabha can create a consultative mechanism before the speaker certifies a bill as a money bill. It may also follow the procedure followed in Britain, where the House appoints two members to be consulted by the speaker before taking a decision. All these things are easier said than done because they need amendment of constitution via article 368.


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