House panels delayed, Naidu asks parties for names on priority

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) Miffed over political parties not nominating members for various Standing Committees, Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on Friday appealed to all the parties to send the names for the House panels at the earliest.

"I am sorry to say, in spite of the reminder now, some of the parties are yet to give names. I don't want to name parties. It's not my purpose also. I appeal to all political parties to give names at the earliest so that we can set up Standing Committees at the earliest," the Chairman said.

His response came after TMC leader Derek O'Brien said that many bills are being not properly scrutinized by the Standing Committees and government was bringing more and more bills for approval.

The Member said that government has now listed nine more bills in its list of business for the next week but most of them have not been reviewed by the Standing Committee.

"The Standing Committees have not been formed. Every one of those bills (listed by the government for upcoming week) except the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, none of them have been scrutinized," O'Brien said.

"Sir, my appeal through you to the government is that we have already passed bills without scrutiny. Nine more have been listed for the next week. That means 11 and 8, 19 bills going, passing legislation and no parliamentary scrutiny and there is no Standing Committee," he added.

The House Chairman took note of the point but added that it was not fair to say that bills are being passed without scrutiny.

"You people are sitting late till night and then going through each and every section of the bill and passing it," Naidu said.

Among various bills in the government's list of business for Rajya Sabha are Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019, Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill, Code on Wages Bill, the Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and a bill to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act.