Panel adopts draft Business Rules
*Assembly quorum down from 23 to 10
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 11: The Business Rules Committee of the Legislative Assembly today adopted draft rules for running the House incorporating all amendments pertaining to the Assembly made in Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019 including bringing down quorum from 23 to 10 and removing several references which have turned irrelevant post August 5, 2019 like Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, Legislative Council, Governor, Joint Select Committee etc.
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However, following objections by certain members especially those from the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), two amendments including the one raising timing for moving adjournment motion in the Assembly from one hour before schedule start of the House to two hours and another mentioning specific charges before moving no-confidence motion against the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker were not incorporated in the draft rules, some of the members of the Committee, told the Excelsior.
Headed by Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather as ex-officio chairman, the Committee comprised Mubarak Gul, ex-Speaker, Saifullah Mir, former Law Minister, Hasnain Masoodi, ex-MP and Retired High Court Judge, all from National Conference, Pawan Kumar Gupta, former Minister and Ranbir Singh Pathania, both BJP, MY Tarigami (CPM), Nizam-ud-Din Bhat (Congress) and Muzaffar Iqbal Khan (Independent-Thannamandi). Barring two BJP Members, all others are part of NC alliance.
As per the members, all provisions of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019 pertaining to the UT’s Legislative Assembly and subsequent amendments carried out in the Act pertaining to Legislative Assembly, have been incorporated in the Business Rules of the Assembly.
One of the significant amendments incorporated in the Business Rules which was part of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act pertained to reduction of quorum for running the Assembly from previous 23 to 10. Now, the Assembly can run with just 10 members out of 90 present in the House. Earlier when Jammu and Kashmir was a State with 87 MLAs, the quorum was fixed at 23.
A member of the Rules Committee explained that reducing quorum to 10 is part of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act. He said the quorum mentioned in the Reorganization Act was 10 or 10 percent of total strength of the House. The word 10 was adopted as 10 percent would have further brought down the quorum to 9.
Two amendments in the Act proposed by the Assembly Secretariat were not adopted following objections by the BJP members. One of the amendments was increasing time for moving adjournment motion in the Legislative Assembly from one hour before scheduled start of the House to two hours.
The BJP MLAs were of the view that it will be difficult for the MLAs to move adjournment motion at 8 AM and therefore the time should stay at 9 AM as is the case at present if the House starts at 10 AM.
Another amendment pertained to mentioning specific charges before moving no-confidence motion against the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. This amendment too was objected by the BJP member.
Other amendments in the draft rules include dropping all references to Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, Legislative Council, Joint Select Committee etc. The words Governor and State were replaced by Lieutenant Governor and Union Territory respectively.
As the Legislative Council has been abolished, the word Joint Select Committee was also removed. Now, if a Committee has to be set up for any purpose by the Legislative Assembly, it will be called the House Committee.
“Since these are only amendments in the rules and not new rules, they are unlikely to be referred to the Lieutenant Governor for approval,” the sources said, adding they will come into effect once notified by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat on the directions of the Speaker.
The amendments will be applicable from budget session of the Legislative Assembly starting March 3.
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