New Delhi, May 13: The Centre is set to re-promulgate the ordinance on land acquisition after The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2015, was referred to a joint committee of Parliament for clause-by-clause scrutiny.

The Centre failed to pass the bill in the budget session after the Opposition demanded that a parliamentary panel, comprising of representatives from both Houses, should take a re-look because of the nine new amendments brought in.

The Constitution states that an ordinance in place of a bill can be issued but within six weeks from the first date of a Parliament sitting. In this case, the second half of the budget session began on April 20.

The government has time until May 31 to re-issue the ordinance by an executive order that will have to be ratified by the Union cabinet.

Government sources said the cabinet would meet soon after the Prime Minister returns from China on May 20 and complete the formalities for recommending the re-promulgation of the ordinance. It will be sent to the President for a formal ratification.

To be re-issued, the ordinance will have to wait for the President to officially announce the prorogation of the budget session of Parliament.

The cabinet committee of parliamentary affairs met this morning and recommended prorogation.

Parliamentary affairs minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, when asked if the land acquisition ordinance would be re-promulgated, said: "We will take a decision."

Naidu, who spoke to the media in the customary session-end briefing this evening, quoted the Rajya Sabha Opposition leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, as saying on an earlier occasion that certain ordinances had been re-promulgated three or four times.

"So there are precedents that were set by Congress governments," he said.

The joint committee - it comprises 20 Lok Sabha MPs and 10 Rajya Sabha MPs and is headed by Darjeeling MP S.S. Ahluwalia of the BJP - is expected to complete its scrutiny of the bill before the next Parliament session scheduled to start in the third week of July.

Opposition sources said they were "sceptical" if the NDA's bill would ever be legislated after the Congress and several other parties repeatedly said they would oppose it tooth and nail. "The scenario I foresee is that the Lok Sabha will pass it and the Rajya Sabha will block it," said a Congress MP.

When Naidu was asked if setting up a joint committee paved the way for convening a joint sitting of Parliament that would give the NDA the required majority to pass the land acquisition bill, he said: "Please don't cast aspersions on the committee, let it do its work."

Government sources said since Modi had staked his personal prestige and credibility on the bill, he would "do everything" to ensure the Rajya Sabha rejected it in the next session, so that the government could recommend convening a joint sitting to the President.

In 2002, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government had resorted to the same steps to pass the Prevention of Terrorism Act that the Opposition had similarly blocked.