Certification of Money Bills - II: The Aadhaar Judgment Perspective

Back in February 2017, TDL dealt with Money Bills, their certification as such by the Speaker, and whether said certification could be challenged in Court ("Certification of Money Bills"). Now, with a Constitution Bench having ruled on this in the Aadhaar matter, it is time to update our understanding of this concept.

We will, of course, not deal with the crux of the Aadhaar judgment here. Everyone will have surely, by now, read all about what was upheld and what was struck down therein, and there really is no need to discuss such momentous matters. It is the minutiae that concern us eccentrics. Our focus therefore begins with paragraph 389 (pg. 458 of 567) of Justice Sikri's judgment.

At the outset, let us note one thing: the Supreme Court has not refrained from going into this matter. That itself is a major landmark, in TDL's opinion. Whether or not the Aadhaar Act should have been passed as a Money Bill is a question that the SC has very much embraced and ruled upon. Kind of.

In paragraph 405, Justice Sikri states the following:

We would also like to observe at this stage that insofar as submission of the respondents about the justiciability of the decision of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha is concerned, we are unable to subscribe to such a contention. Judicial review would be admissible under certain circumstances having regard to the law laid down by this Court in various judgments...

The various judgments His Lordship refers to are the Raja Ram Pal decision (which we have discussed in our Feb-2017 ramble), along with the judgments in S. R. Bommai, Sub-Committee on Judicial Accountability, Ramdas Athawale and Kihoto Hollohan. To remind ourselves, it was held, for example in Raja Ram Pal, that if the impugned legislative procedure is illegal and unconstitutional, it would be open to be scrutinised in a court of law.

You can almost hear TDL rejoicing, can't you? The import of this ruling, after all, should be self-evident. No future government, and TDL is looking at those sly and cunning State governments that love to play fast and loose with the Constitution, will ever be able to slip through irrelevant Bills as Money Bills (examples include the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta and Up-Lokayukta (Amendment) Act, 2012 and the Orissa Special Courts Act, 2016. Both were passed as Money Bills, though on the face of it, they clearly deal with anything but money matters. Both find special mention in Justice Sikri's judgment, since both were relied upon by the Respondents to contend that the Courts cannot go into these matters).

But wait. In paragraph 412, His Lordship goes on to state:

For all the aforesaid reasons, we are of the opinion that Bill was rightly introduced as Money Bill. Accordingly, it is not necessary for us to deal with the other contentions of the petitioners, namely, whether certification by the Speaker about the Bill being Money Bill is subject to judicial review or not...

Um. So which one is it? Did they or did they not go into this matter? They evidently didn't, though it is clear that they could, in future cases, go into the illegality of procedure, as stated in para 405 above. So why didn't they go into it in this matter? Because they were of the opinion that the Bill was rightly introduced as a Money Bill. So they did go into it then?

TDL hasn't perused Justice Chandrachud The Younger's dissent. It is a colourful one by all accounts, and he has held that the Bill was not a Money Bill. So he has gone into the matter as well. Perhaps TDL should just rest easy and be satisfied with that much. We all know how that will pan out...