RS votes more than 200 times before clearing chartered accountant bill

THE DEBATE ON

THE BILL WAS HELD FOR AROUND TWO HOURS AND 20 MINUTES BEFORE IT WAS PASSED IN THE UPPER HOUSE

The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed the Chartered Accountants, the Cost and Works Accountants and the Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2022 after the House voted by voice over 200 times, a senior official in chairman Venkaiah Naidu said.

The bill seeks to provide a mechanism for dealing with the cases of misconduct in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

The debate on the bill, which was cleared by the Lok Sabha on March 30, was held for around 2 hours and 20 minutes before it was passed in the Upper House.

“After the debate, the House voted by voice over 200 times, highlighting the procedural rigour involved in legislation,” the official cited above said, seeking anonymity.

The debate on the bill, including the reply of the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman took about 2 hours 20 minutes. The marathon voting process on the clause-wise amendments took 30 minutes and accounted for nearly 18% of the total times taken for passing the bill.

“Procedurally, each clause, if amendments are moved, is required to be put to vote for two times based on the number of Members moving amendments to each clause,” the official said.

CPI(M)’S John Brittas alone had submitted 163 notices for amendments to various clauses of the bill and moved almost all of them during the clause-wise consideration of the same.

CPI’S Binoy Viswam too, moved a number of amendments.

As per the rule of the House, all amendments must be put to vote if any member demands. The support for a proposal or legislation is usually determined through voice votes but at times, division or voting through ballots are also taken place.

“According to secretariat officials, it was after a long time that a bill with so many clauses and so many amendments was passed with voting taking substantial time,” the official said.

The Union government and the chair should have allowed a similar and elaborate voting process on many important bills, including the three contentious farm laws that were later withdrawn, an opposition MP said, wishing not to be named.

Opposition leaders in the past have accused the Centre of bulldozing various bills in the House without any discussion.