Up to 56 percent of the bills introduced in state assemblies in 2022 were passed within a day. This is more than the 44 percent share seen in 2021, according to the ‘Annual Review of State Laws 2022’ report released recently by PRS Legislative Research. In total, 322 out of the total 574 bills passed by the 28 state assemblies analysed were passed within a day in 2022.
“In 2022, nine states including Bihar, Gujarat, Punjab, and West Bengal passed all Bills within a day of introduction. These states passed all Bills within a day in 2021 as well,” said the report.
Legislative activity
Only four states—Kerala, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Rajasthan—took more than five days to pass the majority of their bills. The Rajasthan legislature passed as much as 73 percent of bills after at least five days of their introduction. In Kerala, Karnataka and Meghalaya, this figure stood at 67 percent, 59 percent and 83 percent, respectively.
Legislative activity generally tends to be concentrated over a few days of each session in state assemblies, observes the report.
Goa introduced and passed 26 bills in the last two days of a 10-day session in July 2022, while the other days had seen minimal legislative activity. Further, Haryana introduced 15 bills in just a day in December 2022 and passed them all in the following two days. Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh legislature passed 13 bills in one day in September 2022.
“Passing multiple Bills on the same day also implies that state legislatures are spending less time discussing the various provisions of Bills on the floor of the House. For instance, in Himachal Pradesh, a Bill was discussed for 10 minutes on average,” said the report.
The 28 states analysed passed 21 bills on average during 2022. Assam led the list, passing 85 bills in total, followed by Tamil Nadu (51) and Goa (38).
An analysis by Moneycontrol had previously revealed how the declining scrutiny of bills has been an issue at the central level as well, with the number of bills passed in the same session reaching as high as 69 percent in 17th Lok Sabha.
Declining number of sitting days
Only seven states met for more than 30 days in 2022, with the average number of sitting days for the 28 state assemblies being only 21. Karnataka, which met for 41 days, tops the list, followed by West Bengal (42) and Kerala (41).
Seven states met for under 20 days during the year, with three—Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura—meeting for fewer than 10 days.
Historical trends among 24 state assemblies show a downward trend in the number of sitting days in state assemblies over the years. While state assemblies met for an average of 31 days in 2016, this came down 26 percent to reach an average of 23 days in 2022.
This is another issue that has similarly been seen at the central level as well. Our earlier analysis shows that Parliament’s sitting days have gone down from 121 days on average before 1970 to just 68 days since 2000.
Governor’s assent
The PRS data also shows that 43 percent of the bills passed by state assemblies took more than a month to receive the assent of the respective governor.
Sikkim, where bills received the governor’s assent within just two days on average, leads among states with the shortest time taken for the same. Gujarat and Mizoram followed, with the legislature of both the states receiving the governor’s assent for their bills within six days on average.
On the other end, it took 188 days on average for bills passed by the Delhi legislative assembly to receive the governor’s assent, the highest among states and union territories. West Bengal (97 days) and Chhattisgarh (89 days) are the other two states which saw a comparatively long time taken on average for receiving the governor’s assent on bills passed by the state legislature.
Interestingly, the top three states that saw the shortest time taken for receiving the governor’s assent are all either ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or by a party in alliance with it. On the other hand, the top three states that saw the longest time taken for the same are ruled by parties that are opposing the BJP.
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