By IANS,
New Delhi : Parliament was adjourned sine die Tuesday at the end of the budget session which started March 12.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar said the session had 34 sittings and lost over 48 hours 24 minutes due to interruptions and forced adjournments. The House sat late for 41 hours and four minutes to compensate for the time lost.
There was a special parliament session May 13 to mark the 60th anniversary of its first sitting in 1952.
During the budget session, 21 bills were introduced and 21 were passed. Besides the general budget and the railway budget, some of the important bills passed were the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2012; the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2012; the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2012 and the Northeastern Areas (Reorganisation) and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2012.
Three bills – the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2012; the Anand Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2012; and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2012 were passed on Tuesday.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari expressed happiness that the house worked to its “optimal capacity”. He, however, regretted that some time was lost in disruptions and many questions for oral answers could not be taken up.
“We need to introspect on the distinction between dissent, remonstration, agitation and disruption,” he said in his valedictory address.
The house sat for over 165 hours, during which more than 22 hours were lost on issues like the alleged atrocities committed on Tamils in Sri lanka, an alleged scam in the allocation of coal blocks, allegations by army chief Gen. V.K. Singh on a bribe offered to him and the creation of Telangana.
The house bade farewell to 58 members, including deputy chairman K. Rahman Khan, whose term of office ended in April.
Twenty-two bills were passed or returned during the session.