SC upholds Aadhaar as Money Bill: Here is what experts, govt said back then

Selection of Bills as Money Bill has led to several debates in the past

The Supreme Court might have declared the centre's Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but the government's decision to pass the Bill as a Money Bill will continue to be debated. 

According to reports, the Congress has decided to challenge the Supreme Court verdict to uphold the passage of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, as a money bill in Lok Sabha. 

Even Justice Chandrachud, who was part of the five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that made the judgement today, held that the Aadhaar Act could not have been passed as Money Bill as it amounts to a fraud on the Constitution.

"Bypassing the Rajya Sabha to pass the Aadhaar Act amounted to subterfuge and the law was liable to be struck down as being violative of Article 110 of the Constitution," he ruled.

Selection of Bills as Money Bill has led to debates several times in the past. When the government introduced and passed the Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill in 2016, various arguments on the topic had come to the fore. 

In his speech in the Rajya Sabha on March 26, 2016, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley gave an elaborate explanation as to why the Aadhaar Bill was brought as a Money Bill in the parliament.

Citing sub-clause (c) of Article 110, he said the constitution makes it clear that if moneys flow into the Consolidated Fund of India and if moneys are spent out of the Consolidated Fund of India and a law, in pith and substance, deals with that matter, it becomes a Money Bill.

However, he said the certification of the Speaker is a must for any bill to be introduced as a Money Bill. "Once the Speaker satisfies herself and says, "I certify, it is a Money Bill", this Money Bill, then, is transmitted to this House, it will be a Money Bill, and no authority in the country can question that provision," he said.

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An article, published in Business Standard on March 3, 2017, says similar matters have been taken to Supreme Court several times before but the Court refrained from questioning the speaker's decision.   

The authors - Pratik Datta, Shefali Malhotra and Shivangi Tyagi - argued that this position of law developed by the Supreme Court is incorrect. They list various reasons to prove their point. Here are a few of them:

1. Indian Constitution does not explicitly bar judicial review of Speaker's decisions.

2. Supreme Court has on multiple occassions excercised judicial review of Speaker's decisions. 

3. Other common law jurisdictions also allow judicial review in such cases. They gave example of Australia whose High Court can exercise judicial review under section 55 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900. 

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