Legislative agenda may get pruned amid Oppn protest
NEW DELHI: Parliament will take up the central government’s additional budget or the supplementary demand for grants on Tuesday and a host of other legislation amid speculations that the Centre didn’t have much business left in the winter session. A raft of bills, including the one to repeal the three farm laws, have been passed in Parliament. But with the government holding back a few key bills for the next session, the legislative agenda might get pruned. A top Lok Sabha functionary added that apart from the supplementary demand for grants—the only bill that’s a constitutional requirement in this session-the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Bill will be taken up to replace an ordinance.
The government has told the farmers that the contentious electricity bill—that proposes to allow private firms to compete with discoms in same territory—has been shelved as per
the agreement with the farmer bodies to end their protests. “An amendment to the banking laws is also uncertain in this session and some of the bills mentioned in the initial list of 26 bills for passage in this session are unlikely to come,” said a senior Lok Sabha functionary.
The other bills expected in this session are the mediation bill that aims pre-litigation mediation and at the same time safeguards in the interest of the litigants
to approach competent adjudicatory forums in case an urgent relief is sought, the National Anti-Doping Bill to give a legislative framework to the National Anti-Doping Agency for meeting the obligations of India and The Chartered Accountants, the Cost and Works Accountants and the Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2021 to reform and speed up the disciplinary mechanism of the institutes.