Important Bills Likely To Be Discussed In The Parliament Winter Session

The Winter Session of the Parliament commenced on Monday and will continue till December 13. The session is likely to consider as many as 27 bills.

Some important Bills that are likely to be discussed during this session are:

The Pesticides Management Bill, 2019

This Bill seeks to replace the Insecticides Act, 1968 and set out a regime that is in line with the international norms. The bill stipulates that the government shall fix prices of pesticides to ensure farm chemicals remain affordable. It also seeks to establish a regulatory authority to govern the sector.

The Insolvency & Bankruptcy (Second) Amendment Bill, 2019

This bill aims at setting out a resolution process for Cross-border Insolvency and Insolvency of personal guarantor to the corporate debtor. It also envisages a new formula for minimum distribution of resolution proceeds to the creditors.

The International Financial Services Centres Authority Bill, 2019

This bill aims at increasing the ease of doing business in India by establishing an authority to develop and regulate the financial services market in the International Financial Services Centres set up in Special Economic Zones in India. As per the Bill, all transactions of financial services in IFSCs will be in such foreign currency as specified by the Authority, in consultation with the central government.

The bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on February 12 and was referred to the Standing Committee on February 22.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2019

This bill seeks to amend the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971. While the present law permits abortions only up to 12 weeks, which can be extended up to 20 weeks in specific cases, this bill seeks to permit termination of pregnancy up to 26 weeks in cases of foetal abnormalities or substantial risks to the mother or the child.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019

This Bill is a very controversial piece of legislation which aims to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, and relax the criteria for attaining citizenship by naturalization.

Under the present law, an individual must have resided in India during the previous 12 months, and for 11 of the previous 14 years to be eligible for citizenship by naturalisation. The bill however seeks to relax the requirement from 11 years to a mere 6 years for "non-Muslims".

In essence, it seeks to relax the naturalization process for non-Muslim migrants (such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians) from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Critics of the Bill argue that it promotes discrimination on the grounds of religion.

The same bill was passed by the previous Lok Sabha in January 2019. But it could not get clearance from Rajya Sabha before the term of previous Lok Sabha and eventually lapsed.

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019

This bill seeks to allow and regulate processing of personal data of individuals by both, the government as well as private entities (incorporated in or outside India). Processing such data will allowed only if an individual gives consent, or where medical exigencies so demand, or by the State for providing benefits.

The bill also envisions certain safeguards for data protection. For instance, it obligates a processing personal to:

1. process the data in a fair and reasonable manner;

2. notify the data principal (owner) of the nature and purposes of data collection, and their rights;

3. collect only as much data as is needed and store it no longer than necessary.

The bill also prescribes that "Sensitive personal data", including passwords, financial data, biometric and genetic data, caste, religious or political beliefs may be processed on rather stringent grounds, after seeking explicit consent of the individual concerned.

It further stipulates exemptions for some kinds of data processing, such as in the interest of national security, for legal proceedings, or for journalistic purposes.

The Arms Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019

This bill proposes to amend the Arms Act, 1959. The draft bill criminalizes and punishes acts of "tracking arms and their components from manufacturers to end users", "organised crime", "negligent use of firearm", etc.

It also lowers down the number of valid arms licenses that can be held by an individual at a time from three to one.

With the budget session concluding with exceedingly high productivity, beating the record of past six decades, the expectations from this session are tall as well.

The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019

This bill aims to regulate the use of DNA technology for ascertaining the identity of certain persons. It stipulates that DNA testing can be done only in respect of matters listed in the Schedule to the bill. These include offences under IPC and paternity suits. As a safeguard, it specifies penalties for disclosure of DNA information or for using DNA sample without authorization.

It also proposes to establish National DNA Data Bank and Regional DNA Data Banks that will maintain: (i) crime scene index, (ii) suspects' or undertrials' index, (iii) offenders' index, (iv) missing persons' index, and (v) unknown deceased persons' index.

The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 8 and was referred to the Standing Committee on October 17. Notably, the same bill had been previously introduced in Lok Sabha in August 2018, but it lapsed.

Apart from the aforementioned new bills, the government is also likely to replace two ordinances, namely (i) Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (Production, Manufacture, Import, Export, Transport, Sale, Distribution, Storage and Advertisement) Ordinance, 2019 and (ii) Taxation of Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, by introducing bills instead.

The Parliament will also consider the following nine pending bills:

• The National Institute of Design (Amendment) Bill, 2019;
• The Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2019;
• The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019;
• The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment), Bill, 2019;
• The Dam Safety Bill, 2019;
• The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019;
• The Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill, 2019;
• The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2019;
• The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019.

Interestingly, this session marks the 250th session of the Rajya Sabha. In this session, the house will consider the following pending bills that have already been passed by the Lok Sabha in the previous session:

• The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019;
• The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment), Bill, 2019;
• The Dam Safety Bill, 2019;
• The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019;
• The Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Amendment) Bill, 2019.