Private Member Bills in Jammu Kashmir: Only 3 Passed Since 1980

SRINAGAR: As political parties in Jammu and Kashmir are blitzing on private member bills submitted by them in the Legislative Assembly, the reality remains that such bills rarely see the light of day.

A private member’s bill is a legislative proposal introduced by a member of the Legislative Assembly who is not a minister and belongs to either the treasury benches or the opposition.

Records reveal that not a single private member’s bill has been passed in Parliament for the past 55 years. According to details, only 14 private member bills have ever been passed by Parliament and received Presidential assent, with the last one becoming law in 1970.

The fate of private member bills also remains similar in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. Since 1980, only three private member bills have been passed in the House. Two of them—Jammu and Kashmir Resettlement Act, 1982 and Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 2007—were moved by Abdul Rahim Rather, the incumbent Speaker. The first was brought by him as an MLA of the National Conference in the eighties and the second as Leader of Opposition during the PDP–Congress rule.

Former Lok Sabha General Secretary and expert on legislative matters, PD T Achary, said that the normal attitude of the government is that they do not allow such bills to pass. “In a few cases, they had allowed it to be passed—long, long ago. That was in the 1950s and 1960s. The passage of a bill depends on the attitude of the government, as it holds a majority in the House,” he said.

He said the normal attitude of the government is that they advise the members to withdraw the bills. “Normally, the government does not allow it. The point is that if an opposition member moves a bill and the government allows it to become a law, the member gets all the credit for that, not the government,” he said.

He added that the government normally advises members to withdraw the bill so that it can bring a comprehensive version of its own.

“A private member’s bill may not be very comprehensive; there may be very skeletal provisions in it. The private member does not have the technical expertise to draft a very comprehensive bill. It can be done only by the government. That advice is okay, and the government is right in giving it,” he said.

MLA from Bandipora, Nizamuddin Bhat, said the government always likes laws to be passed through them. “If a private member’s bill is in the public interest and suits their interests, they can allow its passage,” he said. He said such bills have rarely been passed in the House. “A private member is an individual member. He cannot carry the entire House with him,” he said.

The bigger question is whether the bills submitted for the session starting on October 23 will be introduced in the House.

Officials well-versed with the legislative process said that the chances of their introduction on October 28, the day reserved for private member bills, are almost impossible, given that 33 bills from the budget session are already pending with the Assembly Secretariat.

“The private member bills would be listed in business in the order in which the notices were received. Since 33 private member bills are pending, they will get preference in the list of business for that day in accordance with the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly,” he said.

He added that all the bills submitted during the last budget session, as well as those submitted for the upcoming session, will be listed in the business of the House on that day.

“Given past functioning of the House, only 10 to 12 bills are likely to be taken up for introduction in the House,” he said, adding that the bills which are not taken up will remain active.

He further said that the bills do not lapse with the prorogation of the House; they lapse only upon its dissolution. (KNO)