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Updated: Jul 26, 2019 15:27 IST

Several Opposition parties have written to the Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu expressing serious concerns over the passage of bills in Parliament ‘without any scrutiny’.

The letter, signed by 17 lawmakers, says: “We wish to register our anguish over the manner in which the Government is hurriedly passing legislations without any scrutiny by Parliamentary Standing or Select Committees. This is a fundamental departure from the established practice and healthy traditions of enacting legislations.”

Among the signatories to the letter are Anand Sharma (Congress), Derek O’ Brien (Trinamool), Ram Gopal Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Keshava Rao (TRS) and Jose K Mani (Kerala Congress).

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The letter adds that the 17th Lok Sabha had passed 14 Bills in its very first session but none had been referred to a Standing Committee or Select Committee for legislative scrutiny.

17 opposition MPs write to the Rajya Sabha Chairman, M Venkaiah Naidu over "serious concern over the manner in which the Government is hurriedly passing legislations without any scrutiny by Parliamentary Standing or Select Committees". pic.twitter.com/1T7UKffc9F — ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2019

“Public consultation is a long established practice where Parliamentary committees scrutinise Bills, deliberate, engage and work towards improving the content and quality of the legislation,” the letter says.

The letter adds that the first session of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Lok Sabha had about 10 sittings each. In that time, only a handful of Bills, that had undergone parliamentary scrutiny, were passed.

“The first session of the 17th Lok Sabha has had 30 sittings. In this period, a dubious record has been set up: 14 Bills have been passed and none have been scrutinized by any Parliamentary Committee,” the letter says.

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The Opposition parties had held meeting on Wednesday demanding that several contentious bills, such as the tweaks to Right to Information (RTI) and counter-terrorism laws be sent to committees.

The first demand for a bill to be referred to a select committee was made by Azad in the Upper House in connection with the RTI amendments. “State committees are being diluted. We are representatives of states. If states’ rights are diluted then we should talk about it. We demand that the bill should be sent to a select committee,” he said.