The Centre has asked all ministries and departments to evaluate new Bills on four key criteria, including ease of living, ease of doing business, and the decriminalisation of minor offences, before submitting them for the Union Cabinet’s approval.
“In the context of the government’s emphasis on improving the ease of living for its citizens, facilitating the ease of doing business through various initiatives/measures including decriminalization of minor offences, and for ensuring that outcomes/impact envisaged in proposals relating to legislations, policy matters, schemes etc. compare with the best global standards and practices, it has been decided that henceforth all fresh legislative proposals should inter alia be assessed by ministries/departments on the criteria of how it will achieve the aforementioned objectives,” Satendra Singh, Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, said, in a communication dated August 5.
Stating that details in this regard should be incorporated in a separate annexure to the Cabinet Note, the communication adds that it should cover the following points: “(i) Ease of Living; (ii) Ease of Doing Business; (iii) How provisions envisaged in the proposed Bill compare with the best global standards and practices; and (iv) Decriminalization of minor offences”.
In cases where these are not applicable, Singh states, the same can be mentioned in the annexure. “A reference to the annexure may also be made in the main Cabinet Note in the paragraph on ‘justification’,” he adds.
Singh, however, clarified that the procedure for finalising non-legislative proposals for consideration by the Cabinet or Cabinet committee remains unchanged.
The latest instructions are significant as the government has finalised and introduced an average of 40 Bills annually in Parliament in recent years. The Centre introduced 202 Bills in the 17th Lok Sabha, 219 in the 16th, and 213 Bills in the 15th Lok Sabha. In the 18th Lok Sabha, 27 Bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha before the ongoing Monsoon Session began.
Earlier, too, the Cabinet Secretariat has asked ministries to state in their Cabinet Notes the essentiality of the legislation being proposed, and include inputs on global practices, best practices, etc.
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On September 17 last year, the Cabinet Secretariat had asked ministries to examine global practices, standards, benchmarks and best practices on the subject concerned and incorporate relevant details while finalising notes for the Cabinet or Cabinet committees.
In July 2022, it had asked the ministries to examine their proposals while drafting cabinet notes on several criteria—global practice, best practices on the subject, present situation in the country and the objective that the piloting ministry seek to achieve through the proposal or road map for the future, steps taken by states including laws, if any, made by them—and said that laws should be drafted in a way that they do not require frequent amendments.
