Times of India, June 22, 2019
Highlighting the long list of pending bills with one of them pending for more than 32 years, Rajya Sabha chairman and vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday suggested that any bill pending for more than five years in the Upper House should be considered as ‘lapsed’.
Naidu said pendency of legislative business shows Parliament in poor light as he expressed concern over frequent disruptions and low productivity of the House. In an address to the members, he said both Houses lose a lot of time in disruptive expression of adversarial positions. “Please think of every Indian before you debate or disrupt… The present dysfunctional, disruptive environment must change,” he said. He also pointed out the role of the government. “The basic responsibility in this regard lies with the government, the people who are in power,” he said.
He sought wider debate on how to deal with bills that lapse on dissolution of Lok Sabha even after being passed by one House. Naidu said bills passed by the 16th Lok Sabha were pending in the Upper House. They lapsed with the dissolution of Lok Sabha and hence the lower House has to take up these bills again. “It would take a minimum of two sessions for doing so,” Naidu said.
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