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Opposition voice smothered in Parliament : Naidu dismisses charge
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday rejected the allegation by 15 MPs that voice of the opposition was being "smothered" in the House, saying empirical evidence goes to prove that the complaint does not stand scrutiny.
New Delhi : Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday rejected the allegation by 15 MPs that voice of the opposition was being "smothered" in the House, saying empirical evidence goes to prove that the complaint does not stand scrutiny.
During the Zero Hour, Naidu said 15 members of Rajya Sabha belonging to 14 parties addressed him a letter dated July 25, 2019 conveying what they called their anguish and concern over passing of Bills without scrutiny by either Parliamentary Standing or Select Committees.
Noting that the contents of the letter have been widely reported in the media, he said, "This has cast a cloud over the functioning of our apex legislature which is not good for our parliamentary democracy".
He said the 15 members have quoted some statistics about the number of bills referred and not referred to scrutiny either by parliamentary committees during the 14th, 15th, 16th and the present Lok Sabha.
"If their complaint is that Bills first introduced in these Lok Sabha sessions were not referred to parliamentary committees for scrutiny, that is not certainly in my domain as the Chairman of Rajya Sabha.
So, I am not in a position to respond to this complaint and I feel that this complaint, if any, has been addressed to the wrong person," Naidu said. Naidu further said "since a broad message" has gone about hurried legislation by Parliament, of which Rajya Sabha is a constituent, as its Chairman, he would like to clarify the factual position regarding scrutiny of Bills introduced in the Upper House.
During the last five sessions that he has presided (244th to 248th sessions), Naidu said 10 Bills have been first introduced by the Government in Rajya Sabha.
"I am happy to inform you that as Chairman of this august House, I have referred 8 of those 10 Bills to respective Department Related Standing Committees, though it is not mandatory to do so," he said.
The other two Bills that were not so referred related to inclusion of some more groups in the category of Scheduled tribes as they did not warrant a detailed scrutiny by standing committee.
