Subsequently Ms. Banerjee decided to replace the ordinance with a Bill that will be moved in the Assembly next week.
“When the Assembly is in session an ordinance cannot be promulgated according to Article 213 of the Constitution and a Bill related to the issue has to be introduced [in the House],” Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Surya Kanta Mishra said after calling on the Governor.
“The Governor heard our views and we are more or less assured that he will take the necessary steps as per the Constitution,” he added.
Left Front Committee chairman Biman Bose said in Hyderabad, where he is attending meetings of the Polit Bureau and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), that “an ordinance could not be taken up when the Assembly was in session. Legislation was possible by putting up a Bill that later became an Act.”
The Chief Minister said on Thursday that the ordinance had been signed by the Governor. It would enable the State government to return 400 acres (out of the 997.11 acres) to the “unwilling” farmers who had given away their plots.
Mr. Mishra, also a member of the CPI (M) Central Committee who described the ordinance as unconstitutional and undemocratic, said: “We do not have a copy of the ordinance and nor has there been a gazette notification on the matter.”