CHAPTER-III DRAFTING INSTRUCTIONS AND PREPARATION OF THE BILL

7. Drafting Instructions: If approval of the Cabinet for any Legislative proposal has been obtained, the Department initiating action in this behalf is to prepare an office memo. indicating with sufficient precision the lines on which it has been decided to legislate and requesting the Law Department in the Legislation Section to take steps for drafting a Bill with a view to its introduction in the Assembly. It is generally found that drafting of a Bill proceeds at the maximum speed and with minimum friction if complete instructions are given to the Draftsman. A great deal depends upon the case and skill with which instructions to the Draftsman are given and acquainted with so much of the background of what is proposed as relevant. The summary of the legislative proposals as submitted to the Cabinet is no substitute for the precise instructions which the Draftsman always requires before undertaking any drafting work, because the summary in most cases would be very general in character and would not have dealt with each of the proposal in detail. Before the Draftsman can begin to put the words on paper, he must understand the legislative proposal and familiarise himself in the subject matter thereof. A Draftsman cannot be expected to be an expert in every field of knowledge and there he has to be educated up to a point, where he will become qualified to deal with the subject matter of the Bill from the legislative point of view. Thus conferences have to be held at various stages before a Bill can be finalised. Thus it is important that the Departmental Officers/officials who confer with the Draftsman should be of sufficient experience and standing and should give authoritative answers to any questions, which will come up during the process of drafting. These instructions should be a simple statement in clear language of the several points covered by the Bill and should include reference to any relevant legislation or related literature of which the Administrative Department is aware. Such statement is better not prepared in the form of a draft Bill. Occasionally, a draft Bill is prepared by the Administrative Department for submission to the Draftsman in place of the memorandum, but this practice is always discouraged as it is generally a handicap to the Draftsman, as a draft measure prepared by non-Draftsman as a rule will be defective and the Draftsman will have to spend much time in undoing what has been done. His position becomes even more awkward when a draft Bill prepared in this manner has been circulated and discussed before submission to the Draftsman, because it is generally assumed that the final draft will closely resemble to the draft of the administrative department, and any attempt on the part of Draftsman to alter the structure of such a Bill may be resisted. The Bill drafting is a labourious process and is essentially a task that ought to be carried out under conditions which allow sufficient time for deliberate thought and research upon the many points that arise. Wherever possible an attempt will always be made to have the first draft prepared by one of the junior Draftsman and it will thereafter be examined and finalised by a senior Draftsman in collaboration with the Draftsman who prepared the first draft. This will reduce mistakes to the minimum. In the case of short Bills, one or two drafts may suffice, but in the case of longer Bill several drafts may have to be made and subjected to criticism both on files and at conferences. In the case of important and complex Bills, the process of drafting may be a long one extending over several months. The process of revising the draft must continue until the sponsors of the Bill and the Draftsman are both satisfied with the form and contents of the Bill.

8. Preparation of Hindi version of Bill: When a Bill is finalised by the Draftsman, the Official Language Wing attached to Law Department is approached, where it has been finalized in English language, to prepare the Text of the Bill in the Official Language i.e. in Hindi, and where it has been prepared in Hindi, to prepare its authoritative text in English Language, so that the Legislative proposal may be discussed and approved by the Council of Ministers and processed in the Legislative Assembly, in the Official Language along with its authoritative English text as contemplated in Article 348 of the Constitution of India.