What is money bill ?
A Money Bill is a financial legislation that contains provisions exclusively related to revenue, taxation, government expenditures, and borrowing
Article 110(1), a Bill is deemed to be a money Bill if it deals only with matters specified in Article 110 (1) (a) to (g) — taxation, borrowing by the government, and appropriation of money from the Consolidated Fund of India, among others.
Article 110(1)(g) adds that “any matter incidental to any of the matters specified in Articles 110(1)(a)-(f)” can also be a Money Bill.
Article 110 (3) of the Constitution, “If any question arises whether a Bill is a Money Bill or not, the decision of the Speaker of the House of the People thereon shall be final.
Money Bills must be introduced in the Lok Sabha and cannot be introduced in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house).
The Rajya Sabha can only make recommendations on a Money Bill but does not have the power to amend or reject it.
President can either accept or reject a money bill but cannot return it for reconsideration.
There is no provision for Joint sitting
Ongoing battle
Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud agreed to list petitions challenging the Money Bill route taken by the Centre to pass contentious amendments in the Parliament
The Money Bill question was referred to a seven-judge Bench in November 2019 by a five-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi in the case of Rojer Mathew vs. South Indian Bank Ltd.
The cardinal issue is whether such amendments could be passed as a Money Bill, circumventing the Rajya Sabha, in violation of Article 110 of the Constitution.
The reference includes legal questions concerning amendments made from 2015 onwards in the PMLA through Money Bills, giving the Enforcement Directorate almost blanket powers of arrest, raids, etc.
Though the court had upheld the legality of the PMLA amendments, it left the question of whether the amendments could have been passed as Money Bills to the seven-judge Bench
The case also raises questions about the passage of the Finance Act of 2017 as a Money Bill to alter the appointments to 19 key judicial tribunals, including the National Green Tribunal and Central Administrative Tribunal.
The question of passage of laws after dressing them up as Money Bills had come up in the Aadhaar case too.
However, the top court had, in a majority verdict in 2021, refused to review its 2018 judgment (K. Puttaswamy case) upholding the validity of the Aadhaar Act and its certification as a Money Bill.
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