Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 12: As Governor NN Vohra today formally summoned joint session of the Legislature from January 18, 2016, the Legislative Assembly Secretariat called upon the MLAs to submit 20 questions, five private member’s bills and four Resolutions each for the budget session, which was expected to last till first week of March.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Governor today summoned the Legislature session, which would begin at 11 am on January 18 with his Address to joint session of the Legislature followed by debate on his Address from January 19 and reply by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Soon after the Governor called the session on the advice of State Cabinet, which had approved decision of Law and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry to advance budget session from January 18 in its meeting on December 2, the Legislative Assembly Secretariat issued a bulletin calling upon the MLAs to submit 20 questions each—10 in starred and 10 in un-starred categories latest by December 31.
The starred questions are debated in the House during Question Hour with all MLAs having right to seek supplementaries followed by reply by the concerned Minister while the MLAs get only written replies in the House for un-starred questions.
The Assembly Secretariat has also asked the MLAs to submit five private member’s bills each for the budget session by December 31 and four private member’s Resolutions by January 3, 2016.
Two days each are reserved for private member’s bills and Resolutions in the budget session.
Out of 89 MLAs, 62 members only can submit the questions, private member’s bills and private member’s Resolutions as 23 members of the Assembly are Ministers including Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, two others are Presiding Officers (Speaker Kavinder Gupta and Deputy Speaker Nazir Gurezi) while two MLAs enjoyed rank of the Ministers of State (MoS) as they have been nominated as vice chairpersons of the Boards.
Jammu and Kashmir has 25 Ministers including the Chief Minister. While 23 of them are MLAs, two others (Naeem Akhter and Chering Dorjey) are MLCs.
The Ministers, the MLAs with rank of Ministers or holding official positions and the Presiding Officers can’t ask the Questions or submit private member’s bills and Resolutions in the House as they formed part of the Government.
As reported exclusively by the Excelsior, the Government has already decided to extend the budget session to at least 30 sittings as against just 16 this year, which could take the session to at least first week of March or even March 10.
During current year of 2015, the first of PDP-BJP coalition Government headed by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the Legislature had just 23 sittings as against 100 recommended by a Parliamentary Standing Committee and unanimity at a conference of the Presiding Officers that the State Assemblies must have 50 to 70 sittings in a year to give legislators all possible opportunities to raise the issues of public.
This year, the budget session in March-April in Jammu, the winter capital of the State, had 16 sittings while autumn session in October in Srinagar, the summer capital of the State had 7 sittings only, totaling 23, which were perhaps lowest as compared to other Assemblies in the country. Previous budget sessions in the State used to have maximum 25 to 26 sittings.
Similarly, they said, the autumn session of the Legislature, was likely to be converted into summer session in August, which is held in Srinagar, and was likely to have minimum of 20 sittings as against seven this year.
“The Government intends to take minimum sittings of both the session to at least 50, if not more, to shun the impression that it avoids the Legislature,’’ sources said, adding that the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry and Presiding Officers of the Two Houses—Legislative Assembly and Council—have been briefed about the Government decision and asked to adjust their schedule accordingly.
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