news details |
|
|
| SUNDAY SPECIAL | | High time, lawmaker changed legislative procedures | | Nirbhay Jammual
Jammu, Aug 22: Come Assembly session, members cry foul over the way either their questions are not admitted in the House or they are not discussed during the question hour. Well there is inherent lacuna in the basic procedure in listing questions for the question hour each day. You have starred and unstarred questions. On an average there are between 18 and 25 starred questions and over 15 to 20 unstarred questions slated for replies and discussion. No doubt the question hour starts well on time. A member gets up and reads out only the question No. He is not supposed to read out the question and that is done to save time. Reading out question No. takes not more than five seconds. The concerned minister takes between 10 minutes to 20 minutes for reading out the reply. The member who had put the question can ask two supplementaries. Invariably the member does so thereby meaning another 10 to 15 minutes. It is followed by a spate of supplementaries and half an hour is
spent,I cannot say wasted, on completing replies and supplementaries and clarification. Even if the time spent on first question-answer session is not more than 10 minutes one may find that not more than three to six questions get raised on the floor of the House and are replied by the concerned ministers.The remaining questions become part of the Assembly business. Either Reporters covering the Assembly make use of some of the questions and their answers which could not be raised during the question hour by writing "in a written reply the Minister said that...." or the members whose questions could not be raised for discussion evince interest in reading the reply. They fume and fret because the written reply is neither sufficient nor totally correct. They cannot do anything because the question could not come up for discussion and had it been raised in the House he would have exposed the Government. If even 30 per cent of the questions slated
for discussion do not
come up for debate for want of time what then is the purpose of spending time, energy and resources for printing the questions and their replies. Imagine the plight of the members when each member is supposed, under the new procedure, to send atleast 10 starred and 10 unstarred questions to the Assembly secretariat which find place in the question brochure. There are members who have been regular in submitting their questions to the Assembly secretariat but their questions have never come up for discussion. It is so either their questions were catalogued in the unstarred question set or they were among the last questions in the list of starred questions. If they protest, if they are on feet giving vent to their anger they are justified.Do the Assembly secretariat officials go by the stature of the member? Those who have been senior members get weightage as their questions are placed among first five questions leaving much scope for them to get time for
discussion.Rules need to be revised.If all the questions do not come up for discussion why should then much labour be lost on preparing answers to the questions. Well the Civil Secretariat and other Government offices have instructions to suspend other works and devote full time and energy in completing replies to the questions submitted by the members. A couple of changes need to be introduced for making the question hour really purposeful and productive. Either increase the question houir time from one hour to two to three hours so that at least 75 to 80 per cent questions could come up for discussion. If it is not possible every day let a two-hour question hour be fixed on alternate days Normally it has been seen that if there are two sittings there is no question hour during the second sitting. This needs to be amended so that there is question hour during the second sitting. Members who are not satisfied with the reply to their questions need to
be permitted either to raise the matter during the zero hour or be allowed to raise the issue through a call attention notice. This would help members to seek clarification of the issues raised by them in the questions. If these changes cannot be introduced the proper way is to either scrap the question hour system or permit the member,who had raised the question, to ask only one supplementary. If the member is still unsatisfied or other members wish to seek clarification on some allied issues they could raise it during the zero hour on the same day.Usually under rules ministers are not bound to reply each and every issue during the zero hour but if the members raise the issues that they could not raise during the question hour ministers should be asked to reply those issues.If these changes are not possible ban discussion and debates on the floor of the House.Let the members assemble in the House and start saying "yes" and "nos"to suggestions
given by the treasury benches.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
