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Disturbing to see that in today's hearing in the Tribunal Case, the AG tried to re-litigate an issue that was already decided in the Aadhaar Judgment - that the speaker's decision to certify a money bill is subject to judicial review. (1/n)
Certifying a bill as a money bill has very serious consequences, as it takes the Upper House out of the equation. When you add this to the anti-defection law, which disallows intra-party dissent, a money bill is essentially akin to an executive decree. (2/n)
In other words, when a majority government is in power in the lower house, a money bill takes away any form of legislative/parliamentary check on executive power. (3/n)
It is this unique concatenation of circumstances that makes judicial review of the speaker's decision to certify a bill as a money bill vital, because there is effectively no other relevant means of oversight/accountability. (4/n)
Also note that the doctrine that the Speaker's decision is not open to question comes from the United Kingdom, which follows parliamentary supremacy. In that scenario, the Speaker is the final and ultimate umpire of the sovereign parliament's proceedings. (5/n)
In India, however, we have a written Constitution and constitutional supremacy, so the action of every constitutional functionary including the speaker must conform to the Constitution, and the body to adjudicate that is the Court. (6/n)
The specific textual and structural arguments to this effect were made in the Aadhaar case, and have been recorded in the live tweets of the hearing, where you can check them out. And the majority did indeed review the Aadhaar Act to see whether it was a money bill or not. (7/n)
Hopefully, in the Tribunals Case, the Supreme Court will finally settle the issue for good. The alternative is that, in the future, a partisan Speaker can at any point make the Upper House irrelevant to legislation by designating a bill as a money bill. (8/8)
