Parliamentary control over Charged Expenditure in the Budget, a must
Most people naively believe that only after every item of estimates is voted by
the Parliament or a State legislature the annual budget for the Union or the
concerned State takes effect. It is however far from truth. Going by the
Constitution, the sums covered under Charged Expenditure (broadly for
maintenance of the 3 wings of state machinery and payment of loans and
liabilities of the Government) are outside the purview of voting power of the
legislature (Article 113-2), while the sums covered under non-Charged
Expenditure (broadly for welfare and development purposes), which are presented
in the form of Demand for Grants are however subject to vote, but in an
extremely limited sense. At the most the members of the legislature can ‘refuse
to assent, to any demand or to assent to any demand subject to a reduction of
the amount specified therein’ (Article 113-2), never to raise it. Again, as if
to drill the last nail in the coffin, the Article 113-3
says, No demand for a grant shall be made except on the recommendation of the
President’. Moreover, unlike a general bill, which originates in the house of
legislature (Article 107-1), a money bill or a financial bill shall not be
passed by either House of Parliament unless the President has recommended to
that House the consideration of the Bill’ (Article 117-3). Thus, for all
practical purposes, the Constitution has left the domain of budgetary
allocations fully in respect of charged expenditure and to a great extent in
respect of other expenditure to the discretion of the officialdom,
notwithstanding much ado that is annually made about presentation and passing
of the budget in the legislature. Perhaps in no other democracy of the world
such a double-standard treatment is meted out to the legislature vis-à-vis
budgetary process as in India. And it is a shocking revelation that the free
India’s Constitutional dispensation on the budgetary
process is a mere continuation and reproduction of the corresponding
provisions as existed in the colonial Government of India Act 1935.
The virtual monopolization of the budgetary process by the bureaucracy post
Independence albeit the Constitutional sanction, has already wrought a great
havoc to the economic life of the Indian nation. For instance, in the Union
Budget of 2009-10 the total amount of charged (non-voted) expenditure equals
more than twice the total of plan plus non-plan expenditure. Again, as much as
98% of such charged expenditure is slated to go towards repayment of the past
loans, interest thereon and related liabilities. Precisely speaking, the
absence of legislative control over the budgetary process has not only pushed
the people of India towards further impoverishment and vulnerability, but also
caged India into a debt trap, overcoming of which is not foreseeable in near
future, given the continuation of the current constitutional regime.
The Oriya article titled ‘Colonial framework of India’s budget process- how
long?’ (http://www.box.net/shared/cvs8aozh7j ), written in continuation of the
earlier circulated main article in English ‘India’s Union Budget 2009-10 as a
child might see it’ (http://www.box.net/shared/icl16aaxgg) presented on 18th of
August 2009 before an assembly of social activists at Bhubaneswar organized by
CRY sponsored VCRO, explores and elucidates further the above issues, and more
importantly, calls for a drastic amendment to the concerned provisions in the
Constitution with a view to endow the legislature at both Central and State
level with full control over the budgetary process from A to Z just as is the
case in developed democracies.
Chitta Behera, 28th Aug. 2009
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