By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 12 Sep: Speaker of the Uttarakhand Assembly, Ritu Khanduri Bhushan has appointed a select committee headed by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal to study and suggest improvements in the Reservation Bill that provides for 10 percent horizontal reservation to statehood activists and their dependants in state government jobs. The Select Committee has been given 15 days time to study and submit its report. It may be recalled that the government had tabled the Reservation Bill on the floor of the House on 6 September with the intention of getting it passed on 8 September and then implement the same. However, on 8 September, when the bill was being discussed for passage and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal sought the approval of the House to get the bill passed, some members raised objections. Bhuwan Chandra Kapri, the Congress MLA from Khatima, said that while he is not questioning the “good intentions of the government to ensure horizontal reservations to statehood activists or their dependants in government jobs, there are some lacunae in the bill, the biggest of being that it does not include the higher posts which fall under jurisdiction of the Uttarakhand State Public Services Commission (UKSPSC). This view was supported by many BJP members including Munna Singh Chauhan and Vinod Chamoli, who suggested that the bill be referred to a Select Committee which can suggest some improvements. Chauhan and Chamoli were also of the view that, given the complex technical grounds because of which the previous bill could not become law and also later could not get the sanction from the Governor, there is a possibility of similar obstacles coming in the way. They suggested that the government should not rush to get the bill passed. Seeing reason behind the suggestions made by the members, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal agreed to refer the bill to a select committee.
As part of this, on the orders of Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan, the Assembly Secretary Shahanshah Mohammad Dilbar Danish today issued an order constituting the Select Committee headed by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal and comprising Munna Singh Chauhan, Vinod Chamoli, Umesh Sharma ‘Kau’, Mohammad Shehzad, Manoj Tiwari and Bhuwan Chandra Kapri as members. The Committee has been urged to study the bill and suggest improvements within 15 days.
Though the House has been adjourned sine die, and in this respect a notification has also been issued today, the assembly has not been prorogued. There is a strong possibility of a one day special sitting being summoned either as part of the current monsoon session or summoning a fresh one day special session to get the revised bill approved in this month itself or in early October.
