Seeing the Opposition’s attitude, which did not allow the House to run on the fifth consecutive day, refusing to relent from their demand for a CBI inquiry into the alleged Rs1,000 crore over SIIDCUl land scam, the Speaker adjourned the House sine die two days ahead of schedule on Thursday.
When the House reassembled after two adjournments at 4pm, the Speaker pronounced Business Advisory Committee (BAC) recommendation that the House would pass the Budget by Thursday only. The Opposition strongly opposed the decision and as the treasury bench started seeking permission to pass the budget department wise, the Opposition boycotted the House at 4.02pm. It gave walk over to the treasury bench, which managed to pass Rs25,330 crore budget including plan expenditure of Rs8,710.38 crore and non plan expenditure of Rs16,619.46 crore for the year 2013-14 in less than 40 minutes.
In this budget, the State Government is expecting Rs18955.72 crore from Revenue receipt and Rs5984.59 crore from capital receipts including Rs5,300 crore from borrowing and other liabilities.
Opposition, which had managed to earn public sympathy and media publicity by raising SIIDCUl land scam inside the house, lost its glory on Thursday. They were seen explaining to media persons that this would be known as black Thursday because treasury bench gagged the voice of Opposition by cutting short the Assembly session.
leader of Opposition Ajay Bhatt said that first time in Uttarakhand Assembly’s history treasury bench had fixed the House for eight days only. Instead of eight days, they should have called the House for at least 14 days. As per norms, there is need to have four days for debate on Governor speech, four days for Budget and four days for seeking grants and two days to debate on bills.
“Whether or not an FIR is lodged on the basis of the recommendations of the Bhati panel would depend on what legal opinion we get in that regard,” Chief Minister Vihay Bahuguna had said earlier on Thursday. The Government is not in a hurry; so is scrutinising all aspects to punish the guilty persons.