The Trinamool Congress has decided against nominating any member to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) proposed to examine the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill that if made into law will allow for dislodging of any minister in India if jailed for 30 days on serious charges.
Trinamool’s leader in the Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien in a blogpost on Saturday gave three reasons for the decision.
“The chairperson of the JPC is decided by the Speaker of Lok Sabha and the chairperson of Rajya Sabha… it’s members are subsequently nominated by each party according to the party’s strength. This makes these committees skewed towards the ruling majority because of their numbers in the Houses. The chairperson of the JPC would have been a BJP MP,” O’Brien wrote, adding that the Samajwadi Party too has taken the same decision, though no announcement has come from the party chief, Akhilesh Yadav, yet.
The bill aims to amend Article 75 of the Constitution, which deals with the appointment and responsibilities of the council of ministers, including the prime minister.
O’Brien argued that JPC findings are often not conclusive.
“Whenever important amendments are proposed by an Opposition MP, the amendments are defeated in the committee by a show of hands. The ruling party uses its brute majority to do this. This has become a trend,” he wrote.
He cited the examples of the JPCs formed for the Bofors scam, the Harshad Mehta scam where either the Opposition had boycotted or the findings not been accepted.
“When the Harshad Mehta scam surfaced, a JPC was set up to inquire into allegations that Mehta diverted funds to Maruti Udyog Limited and provoked a major fall in the Sensex. However the recommendations were neither accepted nor implemented,” O’ Brien wrote.
He said the JPCs had powers beyond the mandate of ordinary committees like issuing summons, demanding documents and examining experts.
“This purpose has eroded significantly post-2014, with JPCs increasingly being manipulated by the government in power. Now, in the same committee which represents public accountability, procedures are bypassed, opposition amendments rejected, and meaningful debate replaced by partisan stuff,” he wrote.
“The Modi coalition pushing to form this JPC to examine an ‘unconstitutional bill’ is a stunt performed to create a distraction from Special Intensive Revision. Someone needed to call a stunt a stunt,” O’Brien wrote.
On Friday addressing BJP supporters in Dum Dum, Narendra Modi defended the bill.
“A government employee loses his job if he is arrested. But there was no law for PMs, CMs and ministers,” Modi said.
Without taking the names of two Bengal ministers who were arrested and one of them is still behind bars, Modi had asked: “Should such people be allowed to remain in their posts?”
Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Saturday defended the amendment.
“In my view, this is an excellent and progressive law. The Opposition should support it, but they are opposing. Is the Opposition in favour of corruption?” Meghwal asked while talking to newspersons in Indore.
