20-05-2025
Delhi Assembly just passed a single Bill in all of 2024: Report
The Delhi Assembly passed only a single Bill in 2024 — the least number of Bills passed by any state or union territory Assembly in India.
This finding is from a report released on Monday by non-profit organisation PRS Legislative Research on the functioning of state legislatures.
Delhi only passed one Bill — The Delhi Goods and Services Tax (Third Amendment) Act, 2024 — while states, on average, passed 17 Bills throughout the year.
This GST Bill was also passed on the same day it was introduced in the Assembly, making Delhi one of the eight states that passed all Bills on the same day they were introduced into the Assembly. The seven other states were Bihar, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Puducherry, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
In 2024, 62 out of the 70 legislators in the Delhi Assembly were from the AAP, and the remaining eight were from the BJP.
The report, titled Annual Review of State Laws 2024, also points out that last year, the national capital's Assembly session, along with Tamil Nadu's, lasted the longest without the session being prorogued. Proroguing refers to ending a session of the Assembly. Delhi's Assembly session continued from February to December last year.
The Delhi Assembly met for 25 days in 2024, higher than the national average of 20. Odisha met for the highest number of days (42), followed by Kerala (38). The average sitting days of Assemblies across the country also fell from a high of 28 in 2017 to 20 in 2024.
As per the report, Delhi's amendment to the GST Bill was among 60% of Bills across the country that received the Governor's assent within a month. Of the Bills passed in 2024, 18% got assent after more than three months (this includes Bills awaiting assent as of April 2025).
States where a high proportion of Bills got assent after more than three months include Himachal Pradesh (72% of Bills passed), Sikkim (56%) and West Bengal (38%).
Devansh Mittal is a trainee correspondent with The Indian Express. He studied political science at Ashoka University. He can be reached at ... Read More
