Political exigencies no reason to speed up money bill case: Centre

Political exigencies cannot be a reason to speed up the Constitution bench hearing of a clutch of petitions that seek the court to determine the subjects and objective of a draft legislation for justifying its passage as a money bill, obviating the need of Rajya Sabha oversight, the Union government submitted in the Supreme Court on Thursday. In 2018, a five-judge bench dwelled on the contours of a money bill as it examined whether the Aadhaar Act could be passed as a money bill or not. In its 2019 judgment, the Constitution bench not only struck down a raft of rules concerning the appointment and service conditions of the members of tribunals, but it also referred the issue of money bill to a bench of seven judges after noting that the Aadhaar Act judgment in 2018 did not substantially discuss the effect of the word “only” in Article 110. When a three-judge bench in July 2022 affirmed the sweeping powers given to the Enforcement Directorate under the PMLA for summoning individuals, making arrests, conducting raids and attaching properties of the suspects, it also left it to the seven-judge bench to decide whether these amendments could have been passed through the money bill route.