CHAPTER-II APPROVAL OF LEGISLATIVE PROGRAMME AND FORMATION OF LEGISLATIVE POLICY.  

2. Legislative Programme:.It is essential that the programme for a session should be decided by the Parliamentary Affairs Department well in advance i.e. at least one and half month before the beginning of each session. For example the budget session of the State Legislature normally begins in or about March of each year. The Administrative Department is, therefore, required to prepare and forward to the Secretary Parliamentary Affairs Department by the 15th of January in each year, a provisional legislative programme for ensuing budget session. In submitting the programme the Administrative Department should set out:-

1. the scope and purpose of the Bill;
2. the administrative Department’s idea as to whether it will be a Bill of long, short or medium length;
3. the urgency of the Bill in relation to the work of the Department and indicating, by numerical sequence where possible, its priority rating compared with other Bills of the Department;
4. whether the Bill has yet been approved in principal by the Cabinet;
5. whether drafting instructions have been issued to the Legislative Wing, in the Law Department;
6. any other remedies which may enable the Parliamentary Affairs Department to determine its priority rating in request to the programme as a whole.

3. Acceptance by the Cabinet.- Only such Bills as are likely to be ready for introduction in the Assembly within the session concerned should be included in the programme. The Parliamentary Affairs Department will review the proposals put forward by the Departments, will consult, where necessary, with the Department concerned and will finally draw up a full legislative programme arranged on a priority basis according to the anticipated sittings of the Assembly during the session. This programme will be recommended for acceptance by the Cabinet.

4. Formation of legislative policy in the preparation of Bills: The first stage in the preparation of a Bill is the formation of a legislative policy. A statute is the formal and legal expression of a legislative policy, and therefore before the Bill can be drafted the policy sought to be implemented by it must be determined. At this stage administrative, financial or political considerations are more likely to be involved than legal considerations and these have to be dealt with and settled by officials in the Administrative Department concerned.

5. Reference to Law Department.- Once these matters are settled, proposals for legislation are to be referred to the Law Department for advice as to their feasibility from the legal and constitutional point of view. Such proposals are considered by the Law Department in advice section and advice is tendered generally on the necessity or desirability of such legislation in the light of existing laws. The competency of State Legislature to legislate on the subject under the Constitution is also considered at this stage, and the broad lines on which legislation may be undertaken are likewise often indicated. From the very nature of things, however, the advice tendered at this stage will have to be of a general character and it is reserved for the legal Draftsman to examine the various provisions in greater details at the drafting stage.

6. Proposals after approval of legislative policy by the Cabinet: Under the Rules of Business, cases involving legislation have to be brought before the Cabinet for decision, and consequently if the Minister-in-Charge of an Administrative Department decides, after consulting the Law Department, as indicated in the preceding para 5, that legislation on any particular topic should be sponsored in Assembly, he causes to be prepared summary setting out the facts of the case, and the legislative measures proposed, and the summary is first shown to the Law Department for its comments, if any, before submission to the Cabinet for approval. Very often the summary is revised in the Law Department so as to bring out more clearly the Legislative proposals involved, and although this work is done in the Advice Section of the Law Department, the Legislation Section is more often than not consulted by that Section. It is essential that the summary to the Cabinet is drafted in such a manner that the case for legislation is fully brought out and that the implications of the proposed legislation are easily understood, but there is no need to attach to the summary a draft of the Bill. In fact, to do so would be to create difficulties for the Draftsman in more ways than one. If the Legislative proposals are not accepted, or are accepted in a modified form, by the Cabinet, much of the valuable time of the Draftsman which he can ill afford to spare would have been wasted in preparation of an unwanted Bill or of unwanted provisions. Where a Draftsman is required to draft a Bill for the purpose of eliciting policy decisions, not only is his work multiplied, but he is very often forced to guess at what the ultimate policy would be and his guesses may not always be right. Further, the Draftsman would have opportunities until the very last movement to improve upon the language of the Bill and this may not always be possible if certain words which have been put into the draft of the Bill submitted to the Cabinet have obtained some sanctity by reason of their acceptances by the Cabinet. It is no doubt conceivable that in exceptional cases draft of a Bill may have to accompany the summary to the Cabinet in order to bring out the legislative proposals with greater clarity and precision, but such cases should be few and should in fairness to the Draftsmen, be reduced to the minimum.