What is Guillotine, the parliamentary procedure adopted in legislative bodies?

With almost the entire second half of the Budget session facing a washout due to the ongoing verbal battle and sloganeering between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress-led opposition in Parliament, the former issued whip to all its Lok Sabha members directing them to be present in the House today, March 23, for passage of important Bills. 

Considering the limited time and cruciality of the Budget session of Parliament, the Speaker is likely to use the guillotine route to ensure the passage of the financial Bills. The time available to Parliament for scrutinising the expenditure requests from all the ministries is quite constrained. Keeping this in mind, guillotine is likely to be used.

What is the Guillotine Parliamentary Procedure?

Guillotine is a procedure to group together and expedite the passage of financial business in Parliament or state Assembly. During the Budget session, it is a fairly frequent procedural exercise in Parliament.

To understand better, a specific amount of time is allotted in Parliament for each Bill's consideration. A Bill is usually composed of several clauses. Once the allotted time to discuss the clauses of the Bill is over, the Speaker of the House rolls out guillotine closure.

The undiscussed clauses of a bill or resolution are placed for vote alongside the discussed portions in order to save time when all the clauses of a measure cannot be discussed in the allocated time. When the Speaker of the House applies the guillotine,  all the outstanding demands for grants, whether discussed or not, are put to vote at once.

What happens after the guillotine closure?

The Appropriations Bill is formally introduced by the government. This will give the government permission to seek funds out of the Consolidated Fund of India.  After being enacted, this Bill becomes the Appropriation Act. The Finance Bill is brought up for discussion following the vote on the Appropriations Bill.

The Finance Bill's sections and its changes are only discussed in relation to the tax measures. The Finance Act becomes part of the law after this bill is passed. The final budget is therefore approved. Voting on these bills is viewed as a vote of no confidence in the government if the outcome is negative. Hence, if a money bill is  voted against, a government may possibly fall.