30 Oct 2023 : The Hindu Editorial

Editorial 1 : Give up impropriety, demonstrate impartiality

Context:

Recently Chief Justice of India (CJI) felt despair over the inaction by the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker with respect to the disqualification petitions of its members that has been pending before him since July 2022.

Role of the speaker:

• As the presiding officer of the Lok Sabha at the Centre and the Legislative Assembly in the States, the Speaker is required to act in an impartial manner. However, the functioning of this institution over the years in India has left much to be desired.
• The presiding officers of legislatures in India are the custodians of the rights and privileges of the House, its committees and its members.
• Apart from the traditional roles with respect to the conduct of business, the Speakers perform two important functions:

1. Certifying a Bill to be a Money Bill (over which the Rajya Sabha/Legislative Council have a limited role)
2. Deciding on disqualification under the Tenth Schedule for defection.

Bypassing anti-defection law (ADL):

• The Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly rules provide for suspension of members for misconduct in the House. It has been noticed that the Speakers and the Houses misuse these provisions more often than not against the Opposition members.
• On the other hand, our elected representatives find ingenious methods to circumvent the anti defection law. The authority to decide on the disqualification of members under the Tenth Schedule is vested in the Speaker of the House.
• While he/she is expected to perform this constitutional role in a neutral manner, past instances have hardly inspired confidence, with the Speakers favouring the ruling dispensation.
• The minority judges in Kihoto Hollohan case (1992) were of the view that vesting the power to decide on defections with the Speaker violates the basic democratic principles.
• The Supreme Court in Keisham Meghachandra Singh vs The Honble Speaker Manipur(2020), recommended that Parliament amend the Constitution to vest these powers in an independent tribunal to be headed by judges.
• The present indictment of the Speaker of Maharashtra Assembly is also due to his continued inaction in deciding disqualification petitions for more than a year despite directions from the Court.

Other roles of the Speaker:

• The Speaker is the authority to refer Bills introduced to the Parliamentary Standing Committees. However, even significant Bills that require detailed scrutiny are not referred to such committees. As against more than 60% of Bills referred to committees in the Lok Sabha during 2004-14, less than 25% have been referred during 2014-23.
• Additionally, there have also been challenges in the Court in recent years against certification of certain Bills as a Money Bill by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Once a Speaker, always a Speaker

• In Britain, the Speaker once elected to his/her office, resigns from the political party to which he/she belonged. In subsequent elections to the House of Commons, he/she seeks election not as a member of any political party but as ‘the Speaker seeking reelection’. This is to reflect his/her impartiality while presiding over the House.
• In the Indian Constitution, while the Tenth Schedule allows a Speaker (or Deputy Speaker) to resign from their political party on being elected to their office, it has been never done by any Speaker till date.

Conclusion:

• We should adopt the practices as in Britain to instil confidence in the office of the Speaker. However, even till such time, it is imperative that Speakers eschew the ‘impropriety’ in their functioning and demonstrate ‘impartiality’.

Editorial 2 : An unfolding economic tragedy

Context:

• National Statistics Office (NSO) announced in late August that GDP had increased in the April- June quarter at an annual rate of 7.8%. The most euphoric cheerleaders predicted growth to accelerate to 8%. Even conservative forecasters routinely project GDP growth between 6% and 7%. This GDP- centric framing of alleged Indian economic success is wrongheaded.

Gross domestic product (GDP):

• GDP is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period by a country. It is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health.

Issues with a GDP-centric approach:

• GDP is a flawed metric of national economic welfare. It hides inequalities and deflects attention from acute job scarcity, poor education and health, unlivable cities, a broken judicial system, and environmental damage.
• For India, ‘fastest growing’ growing GDP should be a trivial achievement. India as the poorest of the major economies should grow fastest. But, it has failed to consistently do so. In fact, contrary to the hype, GDP growth has slowed sharply over the past two decades. The problem has been weak mass demand.

Pre-COVID and post-COVID

• Indian GDP grew at an annual 9% rate in the mid-2000s as historically high world trade growth lifted all economies. A financial sector- real estate- construction bubble added froth to that growth. This was unsustainable.
• Growth slowed to 6% after the global financial crisis of 2007-08 as world trade decelerated quickly. By 2012-13, GDP growth had fallen to about 4.5%, but growth for that year and the next three jumped courtesy of a mysterious data revision in January 2015.
• The slowdown from the heady 9% GDP growth in the mid-2000s to 3%-4% before the pandemic reflected severe weakness in demand. That weakness manifested in the glaring drop in private corporate fixed investment from a peak of 17% of GDP in 2007-08 to 11% in 2019-20.
• Private corporations cut back investments recognising that domestic consumers, fearful of job and earning prospects, had constrained purchasing power, and foreigners had only a limited appetite for Indian goods.
• In the post-COVID19 years, the economy has bounced around. If we consider the latest four quarters over the four quarters before COVID, the annual growth rate (of the income and expenditure average) is 4.2%. If we compare only the latest quarter over the quarter before COVID, the annual growth is just above 2%.
• The telltale sign of post-COVID demand weakness is the further drop in private corporate investment to 10% of GDP in 2021-22; analysts believe that it has remained anaemic in 2022-23.
• Meanwhile, to maintain consumption, households have slashed their savings rates to 5.1% of GDP, from 11.9% in 2019-20. Those eligible for credit cards are racking up worrying levels of debt. And with an overvalued rupee and world trade barely crawling ahead, Indian exports have been falling.

Need to bolster demand

• In the glow of a fake high growth story, government policy has tried to revup supply rather than bolster demand through good jobs, more human capital investment, and functional cities. Unsurprisingly, the September 2019 corporate tax cut, sops like PLI schemes, and shiny flyovers and highways have failed to revive corporate investment. Increased fiscal reliance on indirect taxes, which erode purchasing power, has aggravated demand.

Conclusion:

• A sober analysis of GDP growth just before and after COVID points to a medium term annual GDP growth forecast of 3%- 4%. Unfortunately, a domestic elite and international media narrative of “high growth” will continue, as will policies in opposition to India’s needs.