19 Bills pending in Rajya Sabha, oldest dates back to 1992

As many as 19 government Bills remain pending in the Rajya Sabha, with the oldest, pertaining to population control, dating back to 1992.

The Rajya Sabha is a permanent House which is never dissolved, with one-third of its members retiring every two years. While the Bills pending in the Lok Sabha lapse when the House is dissolved, a Bill pending in the Rajya Sabha never lapses.

According to a bulletin of the Upper House, there are 19 pending Bills at present, the oldest being The Constitution (Seventy-ninth Amendment) Bill, 1992.

The Bill proposed to amend the Directive Principles of State Policy to provide that the State shall promote population control and the small family norm, and to include promoting and adopting the small family norm in the Fundamental Duties. It also proposed that an MP or an MLA should be disqualified if they have more than two children.

Also among the pending Bills is The Delhi Rent (Amendment) Bill, 1997, which was to amend the Delhi Rent Act, 1995 that aimed to modernise rent control laws, but faced significant pushback from tenant and landlord groups.

While the government is working on bringing The Seed Bill 2025, among the pending Bills is The Seeds Bill, 2004, which aimed to regulate the quality of seeds for sale, import and export and to facilitate the production and supply of quality seeds.

Another Bill that remains pending is The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill, 2011, which was introduced when Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was the labour minister.

Other pending Bills which were introduced in the UPA 2 include The Building and Other Construction Workers Related Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2013; The Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Amendment Bill, 2013; and The Readjustment of Representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies (Third) Bill, 2013.

The pending Bills introduced during the NDA regime include The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Amendment) Bill, 2019, which aimed to strengthen tribal autonomy in the northeast by enhancing financial and executive powers of Autonomous Councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram, introducing elected village and municipal councils, and The Registration of Marriage of Non-Resident Indian Bill, 2019.

The latest pending Bill, The Pesticide Management Bill, dates back to 2020.