LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT

1. Legislative Department acts mainly as a service provider in so far as the legislative business of the Union Government is concerned. As such, it does not have any specific scheme that can be translated into physical and quantifiable outputs. However, as a service provider, it ensures smooth and speedy processing of legislative proposals of various administrative Departments and Ministries. An overview of the subject matter mainly dealt with by the Legislative Department is as follows :- 

(i) Scrutiny of Notes for the Cabinet in relation to all legislative proposals from drafting and constitutional angles; 

(ii) Drafting of all Government Bills including Constitution (Amendment) Bills before introduction in Parliament; their translation into Hindi and forwarding of both English and Hindi versions of the Bills to the Secretariats of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha; drafting of official amendments to Bills, scrutiny of non-official amendments and rendering assistance to administrative Departments and Ministries to decide the acceptability or otherwise of non-official amendments;

(iii) Rendering assistance to Parliament and its Joint, Select and Standing Committees at all stages through which a Bill passes before enactment. This includes scrutiny of and assistance in preparation of reports and revised Bills to the Committees; 

(iv) Drafting of Ordinances promulgated by the President; 

(v) Drafting of legislation enacted as President’s Acts in respect of States under President’s rule; 

(vi) Drafting of Regulations made by the President; 

(vii) Drafting of Constitution Orders, i.e. Orders required to be issued under the Constitution; 

(viii) Scrutiny of all statutory rules, regulations, orders, notifications, resolutions, schemes, etc., and their vetting and translation into Hindi; 

(ix) Scrutiny of State legislation in the concurrent field, which require assent of the President under article 254 of the Constitution; 

(x) Scrutiny of legislation to be enacted by the Union territory Legislatures; 

(xi) Elections to Parliament, Legislatures of States and Union territories and Offices of the President and Vice-President; 

(xii) Apportionment of expenditure on elections between the Centre and the States/Union Territories with Legislatures; 

(xiii) Election Commission of India and electoral reforms; 

(xiv) Administration of the Representation of the People Act, 1950; the Representation of the People Act, 1951; the Election Commission (Conditions of Service of Election Commissioners and Transaction of Business) Act, 1991; 

(xv) Matters relating to the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners under the Election Commission (Conditions of Service of Election Commissioners and Transaction of Business) Act, 1991; 

(xvi) Matters relating to the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Legislative Assembly Constituencies. 

(xvii) Legislation on matters relating to personal laws, transfer of property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, etc., in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution; 

(xviii) Imparting training in legislative drafting to the officers of the Union and State Governments, etc. 

(xix) Publication of Central Acts, Ordinances and Regulations and their authorised translations in Hindi and other languages specified in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution and also translation of legal and statutory documents. 

(xx) Publication of Patrikas containing Hindi translation of selected judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts on cases pertaining to constitutional, civil and criminal laws. 

2 Legislative Department does not have any statutory or autonomous body under its control. It has two other wings under it namely, the Official Languages Wing and Vidhi Sahitya Prakashan, which are responsible for propagation of Hindi and other Official Languages in the field of Law. 

(a) Official Languages Wing of the Legislative Department is responsible for preparing and publishing standard legal terminology and also for translating into Hindi all the Bills to be introduced in Parliament, all Central Acts, Ordinances, Subordinate legislations, etc. as required under the Official Languages Act, 1963. This Wing is also responsible for arranging translation of the Central Acts, Ordinances, etc., into the Official Languages as specified in the Eight Schedule to the Constitution as required under the Authoritative Texts (Central Laws) Act, 1973. The Official Languages Wing also releases Grantsin-aid to various registered voluntary organisations engaged in promotion and propagation of Hindi and other regional languages and those organisations, which are directly engaged for the publication of legal literature and propagation of Hindi and other languages in the field of Law. 

(b) Vidhi Sahitya Prakashan is mainly concerned with bringing out authoritative Hindi versions of reportable judgments of the Supreme Court and the High Courts with the objective of promoting the progressive use of Hindi in the legal field. In this connection, the Vidhi Sahitya Prakashan brings out various publications of legal literature in Hindi. It also holds exhibitions in High Courts, District Courts and Law Colleges of various States for giving wide publicity to legal literature available in Hindi and to promote sales. Under the Scheme for writing, translating and publishing of law books in Hindi and awarding prizes to such books for use as text books or reference books, an award to the tune of Rs.5,00,000/ - (Rupees Five lakh only) has been instituted. Under this Scheme, 1st prize of Rs.50,000/-(Rupees fifty thousand only), 2nd prize of Rs.30,000/-(Rupees thirty thousand only) and 3rd prize of Rs.20,000/ -(Rupees twenty thousand only) are awarded annually for the best publication in Hindi. 

3. The organisational set-up of the Legislative Department includes the Secretary, Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary & Legislative Counsel, Additional Legislative Counsel, Deputy Legislative Counsel and Assistant Legislative Counsel. The work relating to legislative drafting in relation to all forms of principal legislation and scrutinising and vetting of subordinate legislation under various statutes has been distributed amongst Legislative Groups of officers. Each Group is headed by a Joint Secretary & Legislative Counsel or Additional Secretary, who in turn is assisted by a number of Legislative Counsel at different levels. The Secretary acts as the Chief Parliamentary Counsel and the Additional Secretary is in charge of all subordinate legislation.