NEW DELHI: In the context of Monday's Supreme Court order in the OBC quota case, the Bharatiya Janata Party has come out clearly against erosion of the powers of Parliament. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also says the court order on the reservation policy "amounts to encroachment on the powers of Parliament."

On the court's directive — asking the Centre to lay before it in a sealed cover the report of the Standing Committee on quota for the Other Backward Castes for admission to higher education institutions before saying anything on record — the BJP on Tuesday said any parliamentary panel report "must be tabled in the House first."

Party general secretary Arun Jaitley said: "Separation of the powers of the legislature and the judiciary are an essential feature of India's parliamentary democracy. In matters of framing law, the primacy of Parliament must be upheld at all costs. The judiciary has the power of judicial review, but that is after laws are framed, not before."

Privately, party leaders said the court had "gone a bit too far." A senior leader said "We cannot take a narrow, partisan view of the very role and function of Parliament simply because the United Progressive Alliance Government is in power and the BJP is in the Opposition."

Expressing surprise at the court's decision, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, in a statement, said it was a basic precept of the Constitution that policymaking, subject to Parliament's approval, was an exclusive prerogative of the executive. Legislation, however, was an exclusive prerogative of Parliament. In the lawmaking process, the Government's role was limited to introduction of the legislation. Once it was done, it became a property of the legislature. The parliamentary standing committee was a body set up by Parliament, enjoying its powers and exclusively accountable to Parliament, and through it to the the people. The Government or anybody else had no ownership over the standing committee report until it was placed on the table of the House and it became public.

"In the light of this basic feature of this inter-relationship, independence and separation of powers of the executive and the legislature enshrined in the Constitution, the order of the court amounts to encroachment on the powers of Parliament", the Polit Bureau said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail