Lucknow: Call it increasing awareness of the people or an effective means to put up a point before the state government, the members of Uttar Pradesh state legislative assembly are now presenting more petitions in the house than they ever presented in recent years.
UP’s law-makers presented 1960 petitions of people in the first budget session (May 23 to 31, 2022) of the 18th state assembly.
This number is more than 10 times higher than the number of petitions presented in the house during the last session of 17th state legislative assembly. In all, 156 petitions were presented in the last session of the house from December 15, 2021 to December 17, 2021. The number of petitions presented in the house was 138 in the monsoon session from August 20 to 22, 2021.
Under rules of procedure and conduct of business of the house, the MLAs are entitled to present petitions (read out listed petitions) in the house to raise various issues of public interest that include the demands for development.
“The number of petitions being presented by the members in the house is going up. We are going to soon set up the petitions committee (18th assembly). The number is going up because the people are becoming more and more aware. The people also know that those who used to be in power earlier were working on caste lines. Now the petitions on various issues are filed because the people know their issue will be considered on merit,” said UP legislative assembly Speaker Satish Mahana.
{{/usCountry}}“The number of petitions being presented by the members in the house is going up. We are going to soon set up the petitions committee (18th assembly). The number is going up because the people are becoming more and more aware. The people also know that those who used to be in power earlier were working on caste lines. Now the petitions on various issues are filed because the people know their issue will be considered on merit,” said UP legislative assembly Speaker Satish Mahana.
{{/usCountry}}Under the state assembly’s rules of procedure and conduct of business, 1958, a format is provided for the petitions to be presented in Hindi with name, address and signatures of the petitioner, countersigned by a member. This provides an option to the people to present their issue directly to the house through their elected representatives. The petitions committee, headed by the Speaker, examines the petitions and sends them to the respective departments for necessary action.
“Any petition presented in the house goes to the petitions committee. The committee examines the petitions and sends them to respective departments. Efforts are made to resolve the issues mentioned in the petition. The state government may sometimes cite financial constraints as the reason for not implementing the demand made through the petition,” said Samajwadi Party MLA and former minister Lalji Verma.
Congress Rajya Sabha MP and a nine-term former MLA Pramod Tiwari said the increase in number of petitions may be because of decrease in the number of sittings of the house. “I blame the state government for this (rising number of petitions). Under the rules, the state government should run the house for 90 days. If the state government is not able to call the house for 90 days, it should do so for 60 days. The house is not only having much less than the desired number of sittings but the business hours are also coming down. So, when the members are not able to put up the people’s point under other rules of the house, they resort to presenting the people’s petitions,” said Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, who has a long experience of working as a member of state assembly. “I am not aware of the history of presenting the petitions in the house. But I believe the people must be sending their petitions to the members even on post cards when modern means of communication were not available to the people,” he said.
The petitions committee of the house, to be constituted by the Speaker, should have 15 members. It provides for not appointing a minister as the member of the committee. If any member of the committee is appointed a minister, he/she will cease to be a member of the committee. With speaker’s permission, the petitions can be presented on the bills that have been published or tabled in the house. The petitions are addressed to the house should not be about any issue under consideration of a court of law, commission or tribunal etc. in India.
Minister for parliamentary affairs Suresh Khanna was not available for comments.