New Delhi: The Lok Sabha descended into chaos Wednesday as Union Home Minister Amit Shah Wednesday moved the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025, which seeks to remove central and state ministers arrested or detained in custody for at least 30 days over serious criminal charges, triggering fierce protests by the Opposition which called it India’s “Gestapo moment”.
The Bill was referred to a Joint Committee of the House after four Opposition MPs made brief statements opposing it, with Congress’s Manish Tewari calling it “squarely destructive of the basic structure of the Constitution”.
Torn copies of the Bill were flung in the air by several MPs including Congress’s K.C. Venugopal and TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee as Shah spoke about the referral.
In a particularly tense moment, TMC and BJP MPs came close to a scuffle near Shah’s seat, forcing Speaker Om Birla to adjourn the House at 2.15 PM. When proceedings resumed at 3 PM, Shah sat on the third row, instead of the first where he usually sits.
After the resumption, marshals were also deployed near the well of the House where the Opposition MPs were protesting. However, Birla later asked them to step back.
The Trinamool Congress alleged that Union Ministers Kiren Rijiju and Ravneet Bittu “assaulted” its female MPs, including “pushing and heckling” its deputy leader in the Lower House Satabdi Roy.
After Shah moved the Bills, Birla permitted four Opposition MPs to speak under Section 72 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha that allows brief statements from members opposing a particular motion and the person who moved it.
The Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill, 2025 and The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2025, which seek to extend the provisions of the proposed legislation to J&K and other UTs, were also referred to the Joint Committee.
AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who spoke first, said the Bill violates the principle of separation of powers, undermines the right of elected governments by giving executive agencies a free hand. He said the government was seeking to amend the Constitution to turn India into a police state.
“This Bill would empower the unelected bureaucracy to play the role of legislature. It undermines representative parliamentary democracy. This amendment would leave the CM and ministers at the mercy of agencies. This is the 1933 gestapo moment. This government is hell bent on creating a police state,” Owaisi said.
Gestapo was a secret police force in Nazi Germany that was used to crush the Opposition and enforce Nazi ideology. In his remarks, Owaisi also flagged the FIR against senior journalist and founder of The Wire Siddharth Varadajaran in Assam that invoked sedition charges under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Tewari, who represents Chandigarh in the Lok Sabha, said the Bill was unconstitutional and excessive in its scope.
“This bill is squarely destructive of the basic structure of the Constitution. The Indian Constitution says that there should be rule of law. You are innocent until proven guilty. This Bill stands that fundamental maxim of jurisprudence on its head. It makes an investigative officer the boss of the PM of India. It violates Article 21, the due process clause. FIR, arrest, chargesheet and even framing of charge does not in any manner substantiate guilt.”
“In fact you plead not guilty only after charges are framed against you. It distorts parliamentary democracy which is against basic structure by displacing will of the people through mere custody bereft of judicial determination. This Bill opens the door for political misuse by instrumentalities of the state whose arbitrary conduct has been repeatedly frowned upon by the Supreme Court. And it has thrown all existing constitutional safeguards to the winds,” Tewari added.
The remarks of Venugopal, who is the party’s MP from Alappuzha, that Shah was arrested when he was the home minister of Gujarat, triggered a heated exchange between the two leaders.
“This Bill is to sabotage the federal system of this country. This Bill is to sabotage the basic principle of the Constitution of this country. BJP people are saying this Bill is to bring morality into politics. Can I ask a question to the home minister? When he was the home minister of Gujarat, he had been arrested. Where was his morality at that point of time?” Venugopal said.
A visibly upset Shah immediately stood up.
“I had resigned citing moral values and never took up a constitutional post till the court’s directions came. I went to jail after resigning. We want more values to spread. We can’t be so shameless that we continue to occupy constitutional posts despite facing allegations,” Shah, who was arrested by the CBI in 2010 in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, said.
Prior to his arrest, Shah, after being chargesheeted by the CBI in the case, sent his resignation to Narendra Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat. The CBI was looking for Shah, whose whereabouts were not known at the time, when he quit. A day later, he appeared in public, went to the CBI office in Gandhinagar where he was arrested.
In his speech, Venugopal also questioned the haste in moving the Bill without prior notice, which is required under Rule 19A and 19B of the Lok Sabha rules. Shah pointed out that since the Bills were being referred to a Joint Committee, there was no question of haste.
According to the Lok Sabha List of Business, the committee will have to submit its report by the last day of the first week of the next session.
Venugopal said that the Bill was targeted at BJP allies TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar, who are the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar respectively.
Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav pointed out that Shah’s assertion that the Bill seeks to usher in morality in politics does not cut ice as BJP has made “someone the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra who was supposed to be chakki pissing (serving time in prison)”.
RSP MP N.K. Premachandran said the Bill was aimed at destabilising Opposition-ruled states.
According to its statement of objects and reasons, the Bill seeks to amend articles 75, 164 and 239AA of the Constitution. “A minister, who is facing allegation of serious criminal offences, arrested and detained in custody, may thwart or hinder the canons of constitutional morality and principles of good governance and eventually diminish the constitutional trust reposed by people in him,” it states.
The ripples of the pandemonium in the House also reached Kolkata, where Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee attacked BJP over the alleged heckling of female MPs of the TMC.
“The home minister had to bring in marshals and introduce the bill like a coward. Our MPs were heckled by BJP members. We will take it up with the Speaker. The home minister had to sit on the fourth row like a coward to introduce the Bill,” he told a press conference.
(Edited by Vidhi Bhutra)
When something has been amended 130 times, it suggests poor quality of the original. I would like to see a new capitalist constitution for the Capitalist Republic of India.