Government eases approval for minor bilateral MoUs and agreements, MEA clearance suffices
Until now, every Memorandum of Understanding or agreement with a foreign country had to go to the Cabinet for preliminary approval.
As most of these agreements were reached after significant cross-ministerial consultation, it feels like a lot of scrutiny has already been done. The bigger idea within the government is to simplify procedures and do away with the cumbersome necessity of holding cabinet meetings to approve even small memorandums of understanding that could be part of larger bilateral cooperation frameworks, ET has learnt.
This is expected to provide significant flexibility and eliminate procedural red tape ahead of high-level visits to India or other countries by the Prime Minister.
According to a February 18 notification sent to all Union ministries, marking a significant change in the Government of India (Business Transactions) Rules regarding MoU/international agreement approvals, 1961, prior permission from the Union Cabinet will no longer be required for ‘international documents’ signed during an official visit by the Prime Minister to a foreign country or in case of a visit to India by the head of state/government of a foreign country, provided that it is approved by the MEA and does not carry validity. The Center decided on binding financial consequences.
However, the exemption will not apply to any international documents that must be placed before the Cabinet Security Committee. According to information gathered by ET, the Cabinet Secretariat has communicated the new ‘liberalised’ approach to all ministries, stating that the removal of the previous requirement for cabinet approval will depend on certain conditions.
“Furthermore, these instructions will not apply in respect of any international documents required to be placed before the Cabinet Committee on Security. For other international documents not signed during the Prime Minister’s official visit abroad or during the official visit of a foreign head of state/government to India, the existing instructions will continue to apply,” the February 18 order said. secondly, no ‘binding financial consequences’ have been created by such international instruments, thirdly, inter-ministerial consultations have taken place where necessary and fourthly, the document does not contain the word(s) ‘Treaty’, ‘Convention’ or ‘Agreement’ in its title.
Accordingly, the MEA was tasked to prepare a Cabinet memorandum listing all such international instruments to be brought to the notice of the Cabinet every six months. The Cabinet Secretariat instruction says that the list of all such signed international instruments will form an annex to this Cabinet note.
It is learned that MEA has already issued guidelines to facilitate this process.
