Article 110 is a provision in the Constitution of India that provides the exclusive definition of a Money Bill. This concept originated from Draft Article 90 and was debated in the Constituent Assembly in 1949. It was modeled on the Parliament Act 1911 of the United Kingdom, which aimed to ensure that the directly elected Lower House had final authority over public finance.
The provision works by strictly limiting the content of a Money Bill. According to Article 110(1), a Bill is deemed a Money Bill only if it contains provisions dealing with matters such as the imposition, abolition, or regulation of any tax; the regulation of government borrowing; or the custody and appropriation of money from the Consolidated Fund of India or the Contingency Fund of India. Article 110(2) clarifies that a Bill is not a Money Bill merely because it provides for the imposition of fines or fees for services.
The key mechanism is the certification by the Speaker of the House of the People (Lok Sabha). Article 110(3) makes the Speaker's decision on whether a Bill is a Money Bill final. This certification triggers a special procedure under Article 109, which connects Article 110 to the legislative process. Under this procedure, the Rajya Sabha cannot reject the Bill and must return it with or without recommendations within 14 days, and the Lok Sabha is not bound to accept those recommendations.
While the text of Article 110 has not been recently amended, its application has been a subject of controversy. A significant recent development was the challenge to the Aadhaar Act, 2016, which was passed using the Money Bill route. In the K.S. Puttaswamy (Aadhaar) case, the Supreme Court upheld the classification by a 4:1 majority, though the dissent argued that the Act contained provisions unrelated to the matters listed in Article 110. This debate highlights the tension between the Lok Sabha's financial supremacy and the principle of bicameralism. Article 110 is also distinct from Financial Bills under Article 117, which are broader and do not enjoy the same procedural advantage.