Marital rape to work-life balance: Private member bills make a point

Private Members' Legislations, the only tool that allows MPs other than ministers to introduce draft laws in Parliament, has been dominating the headlines from the Winter Session of Parliament these days. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor made a strong point with his private member bill in the Lok Sabha proposing criminalisation of marital rape and a clear understanding that "a no means no and only a yes means yes."

Former Union minister and Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari reintroduced for the third time (after 2010 and 2021) his private legislation that seeks changes to the Anti Defection Law to liberate MPs of party whips during voting on the bills other than in matters that affect a government's stability.

Other private legislations the Winter Session has seen also reflect the anxieties and aspirations of our times though some hark back to the Emergency era to seek removal of phrases "socialist, secular" introduced in the Preamble of the Constitution under late prime minister Indira Gandhi at the time.

Nationalist Congress Party Sharadchandra Pawar MP Supriya Sule made headlines this session with a private bill in Lok Sabha, entitled "Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025".

This draft law seeks radical legal bars on phone calls and emails beyond work hours and on holidays and aspires to promote work-life balance in our increasingly demanding workspaces.

Nominated Rajya Sabha MP Sudha Murthy introduced a legislation for stricter punishments against animal cruelty while BJP's Bhim Singh made headlines with his Bill on the removal of "secular, socialist" from the Preamble of the Constitution.

In all, Lok Sabha saw the introduction of eight major private bills this week alone and Rajya Sabha saw seven.

The Bills spanned a range of subjects -- from the need to ensure menstrual benefits (by Congress MP Kadiyam Kavya); right to paid menstrual leave for working women and female students (LJP's Shambhavi Choudhary); exemption of Tamil Nadu from the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to UG medical courses (Congress' Manickam Tagore) and right to recall non performing MPs (AAP's Raghav Chadha) to bills on guaranteed urban employment along the lines of MNREGA (TMC's Derek O Brien) and protection of journalists from violence (piloted by independent MP Vishaldada Prakashbapu Patil).

As MPs exercised their right to bring private bills, the question that loomed in parliamentary corridors was -- why do parliamentarians keep falling back on a tool that has barely resulted in enactments.

The answer lies in one simple fact -- Private Members' Bills are the only avenue available to MPs to act independently of party whips on legislative agendas.

On the bills introduced by the Government, MPs are bound by political party diktats and whips under the anti defection law. They cannot exercise independent choices.

But a private bill allows them to rise above party line and speak for constituents, freely and aggressively.

This explains why MPs continue to deploy private members' bills to highlight issues of legislative import which the government of the day may tend to overlook in the humdrum of daily life and politics.

The interest in private bills has stayed intact despite the fact that since 1952, the Parliament has seen only 14 such legislations been enacted as laws though Rajya Sabha saw 2285 private bills introduced until 2023 and Lok Sabha saw a near similar number.

Commenting on the importance of the tool despite its low rate of success as laws, Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Mody says, "While it is true that only a small number of Private Members' Bills, 14 to be exact, have been successfully enacted into law, with five of them introduced in the Rajya Sabha, their impact cannot be understated. These Bills are greatly influenced by public opinion and academic debates and have effectively persuaded the government to adopt a more educative approach towards various subjects. To that extent these have aided in furthering the cause of democratic process."

A dig into Parliamentary archives reveals that the last Private Members' Legislation to be passed by both Houses was The Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Bill in as far back as 1970. The first such Bill to be enacted by the Government was the Muslim Wakfs Bill to provide for better governance and administration of Muslim Wakfs in 1952.

That said, parliamentarians continue to keep an abiding faith in the provision which has survived the vagaries of parliamentary disruption and decline.