Succumbing to the pressure from a united Opposition, the Centre on Wednesday agreed to refer the two key Bills — Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill along with the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill — to separate committees of Parliament.
The Select Committees, having 19 members each, were asked to submit their recommendations by March 18. Both the panels will be chaired by BJP members Bhupinder Yadav and Anil Dave.
The two Committees were finalised after a meeting between leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and leaders of various parties, including leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday morning. The Opposition also agreed to help the Centre in passing some other minor Bills that did not need in-depth study.
“Since the House has agreed that Parliamentary scrutiny was needed for all important Bills... and that they will be sent to the Select Committees, except the minor bills, I withdraw my motion,” CP(M) MP P Rajeeve said. Thereafter, Union Minister for Mines Narendra Singh Tomar and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal proposed to send the Bills to Select Committee.
Besides the heads, the members of the Select Committee to look into the Mines and Minerals Bill are Ram Narain Dudi, Tarun Vijay (all BJP), Shantaram Naik, Manishankar Aiyer (both Congress), Derek O’ Brien (AITC), KTS Tulsi (Nominated), Pawan Kumar Verma (JD-U), SC Mishra(BSP), Kalpataru Das (BJD), CM Ramesh (TDP), Majid Memon (NCP), Ravi Prakash Verma (SP), TK Rangarajan (CPI-M), KP Ramalingam (DMK), D. Raja (CPI), Balwinder Singh Bhunder (SAD), Parimal Nathwani (independent), A.W. Rabi Bernard (AIADMK)
The members of committee to look into the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill, 2015 are V P Singh Badnore and Baswaraj Patil (both BJP), Digvijay Singh, P Bhattacharya and Rajeev Shukla (all Congress), Naresh Agarwal (SP), K C Tyagi (JD-U), Narendra Kumar Kashyap (BSP), Anubhav Mohanty (BJD), K N Balagopal (CPI-M), Sukhendu Sekhar Roy (TMC) and Vandana Chavan (NCP) and Tiruchi Siva (DMK), Devender Goud T (TDS), A W Rabi Bernard (AIADMK), Naresh Gujral (SAD), Anil Desai (SS) and Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Independent)..
On Thursday, the Rajya Sabha will take up the Insurance laws (Amendment) Bill 2015 for discussion and passing. The Bill has already gone through the scrutiny of the Select Committee last year. While the left parties (mainly the CPI-M) is expected to press for division of votes, the stand of Congress has to be seen given the fact its member Anand Sharma was part of the Select Committee.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha PJ Kurien while giving a ruling to settle a dispute on Insurance Bill said that there is no rule or provision that prohibits introduction of a bill in lok Sabha when a similar one is pending in the Upper House. Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the moment a new legislation is issued, the old one becomes infructuous.
The question had arisen on March 3 when the government introduced in lok Sabha the bill proposing to raise FDI cap in insurance sector from 26% to 49% prompting Rajya Sabha members to question its legality when a similar legislation was pending in the Upper House. Kurien said, “neither the Chair nor House has any jurisdiction” over functioning of the other House.