By IANS,
New Delhi : Amid pandemonium over the opposition’s demand for Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay’s resignation, the Lok Sabha Tuesday hurriedly passed nine bills without any discussion.
As the house convened again at 2 p.m. after it was adjourned twice since the morning, a supplementary list of business, which included four bills for consideration and passing, was circulated among the members.
The bills passed included the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) (Union Territories) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2008, South Asian University Bill 2008, Code of Criminal Procedure amendment Bill 2008, and Collection of Statistics Bill 2008.
Earlier, the revised list of business was circulated in the morning and five bills were passed without any discussion in less than 15 minutes.
Angry over the passage of bills without any discussion, members of the Left parties trooped into the well of the house and protested. They also tore the copies of the bills and raised slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the government for disrupting the house on the issue of Antulay’s controversial remarks.
The house was adjourned twice as the BJP demanded Antulay’s resignation over his remark in the house last week hinting that Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare’s death while fighting the Nov 26 terrorists could be linked to the Sep 29 Malegaon bombing that he was investigating and in which members of Hindu radical groups are the main suspects.
The Left MPs also staged a sit-in in front of the parliament building and boycotted the rest of the house proceedings.
“It seems the government does not want any proper discussion on these important bills. Parliament is for discussion. Both the BJP and the government are responsible for disruption of house proceedings,” Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja told IANS.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Basudeb Acharya added: “Passing of bills without any discussion means butchering of parliamentary democracy.”