NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider commencing hearings on challenges to the passage of important laws like the Aadhaar Act as money bills, allegedly to bypass the Rajya Sabha. A money bill can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha. Once Lok Sabha clears it with a simple majority, Rajya Sabha cannot amend or reject it. It can make recommendations, which may or may not be accepted by the Lower House. The NDA does not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha. It currently has 101 seats in the 245-member House where 123 seats are needed for majority. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the petitioners, told the bench comprising Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that since the matter is already in the list of scheduled Constitution bench hearings, it should be created on a priority basis. To this, the CJI said, “I will take the call when I form the Constitution benches.”A seven-judge Constitution bench has already been formed to hear the matter, but it has not yet commenced hearings. The judges had assured the petitioners that the court would start its hearings soon. In the 2018 Aadhaar judgment, the top court upheld the validity of the passage of the law as a money bill. However, Justice Chandrachud, had penned a dissenting verdict that said designating the Aadhaar legislation as a money bill was a “fraud on the Constitution”.Later in the day, the Congress welcomed the court’s decision.
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