Butt Azhar(CNI)
With full Legislative Assembly session including Question and Zero Hours and other legislative agenda being held for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir during last seven years, there has been long list of questions and private member’s bills being submitted by 82 MLAs eligible to raise these issues in the House.

Today was last day for submission of questions and private member’s bills while the legislators can give list of resolutions till February 16.

Sources told the Excelsior that list of questions by the MLAs is set to be close to 800 while number of private member’s bills is expected to be around 80. However, introduction of legislative bills is subject to approval of the Law Department which was not the case when Jammu and Kashmir was a State.

Further, the MLAs can’t raise the questions pertaining to Police Department like anti-militancy operations, law and order and All India Services which are looked after by the Lieutenant Governor. If the MLAs submit queries pertaining to the subjects which are domain of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs through the MLAs, they will be rejected, the officials said.

The Legislative Assembly Secretariat will have to refer private member’s bills and resolutions to the Law Department for vetting and only after the nod they will be introduced in the Legislative Assembly.

Similar is the case with the Government business also which has to be vetted by the Law Department. For most of the business, the LG’s approval is required.

However, as per the sources, despite limited subjects on which the legislators can ask questions, there has been large number of questions received by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat till this evening when deadline for submission of the queries expired.

Number of questions could be around 800, they said.
Speaker Legislative Assembly has asked every MLA to submit 20 questions—10 each in starred and unstarred categories and three private member’s bills by February 10. The starred questions are listed in the Question Hour and debated within the time limit of an hour. The MLAs get written replies only for un-starred questions.

In the House of 90, there are two vacancies (Budgam and Nagrota seats) while there is a Chief Minister and five Ministers. This makes 82 MLAs eligible to raise questions and table private member’s bills and resolutions in the Assembly.

The legislators can submit four Resolutions each for the budget session till February 16.

“There has been massive enthusiasm among the legislators for raising questions and tabling private member’s bills and resolutions as nearly 51 MLAs have been elected for the first time to the Legislative Assembly in the elections held in September-October last year,” the sources said.

Moreover, the full Assembly session is being held in Jammu and Kashmir for the first-time after seven years. A brief five-day session of the Assembly was held from November 4-8 last year in Srinagar but there was no Question Hour. Also, there were no private member’s bills.

Last budget session of the Assembly was held in January-February 2018. In June 2018, the BJP ended alliance with the PDP leading to fall of Mehbooba Mufti-led Government and imposition of President’s and Governor’s rule followed by abrogation of special status and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh on August 5, 2019.

A meeting of the Business Rules Committee for the Legislative Assembly is scheduled for tomorrow and there are reports that subject to consensus, draft rules for running the House could be adopted. The draft rules have already been circulated among the members of the Committee which is headed by Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather as ex-officio chairman.

The Rules Committee comprised Mubarak Gul, ex-Speaker, Saifullah Mir, former Law Minister, Hasnain Masoodi, ex-MP and Retired High Court Judge, all from National Conference, Pawan Kumar Gupta, former Minister and Ranbir Singh Pathania, both BJP, MY Tarigami (CPM), Nizam-ud-Din Bhat (Congress) and Muzaffar Iqbal Khan (Independent-Thannamandi). Barring two BJP Members, all others are part of NC alliance.