Legislature has to meet before Oct 28, notice by Sept 28
*Govt to keep festival season in mind before taking call
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Sept 18: With just 10 days left for issuance of one-month notification for convening the Assembly session before six months, the Legislative Assembly Secretariat has written to the Law Department briefing them about the deadline and suggesting necessary steps for the purpose.
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Official sources told the Excelsior that since special one-day session of the Legislative Assembly was held in Jammu on April 28 and the House adjourned the same day, the Legislature must meet before October 28. There is a provision that the Assembly has to meet within six months.
“Yet another provision states that the legislators have to be given one-month time for submitting questions, both in starred and un-starred categories, besides private member’s bills and resolutions after the Lieutenant Governor convenes the Legislature on recommendations of the Cabinet,” they said.
The deadline for inviting questions etc comes out at September 28 if the Assembly has to meet on October 28. However, the Legislature has powers to reduce one-month period seeking questions, bills and resolutions to 10 or 15 days under exceptional circumstances, the sources said.
The Legislative Assembly Secretariat has, in their communication to the Law Secretary, mentioned that six-month deadline for calling the Legislature is expiring on October 28 and the notice has to be given one-month in advance. In view of this, a decision to call the session has to be taken at the earliest.
“The Cabinet is required to take a decision on date on which the Assembly will meet and number of days it will last,” the sources said, adding on the basis of Cabinet recommendations, the Lieutenant Governor will call the Legislature.
After notification by the Lieutenant Governor, the Assembly Speaker will issue calendar mentioning number of sittings and business before the House.
Sources said the Government will keep festival season in mind before convening the Legislature.
Minister Javaid Dar had earlier stated that the Assembly session will be held in the middle of September. However, now there is no such possibility.
Budget session of the Legislature was held from March 3 to April 9 with break of few days in view of Eid festival. The Government then convened one-day special session of the Assembly on April 28 on Pahalgam terror attack which took place on April 22 in which 26 civilians including 25 tourists and a local were killed.
The six-month deadline for convening the Legislature session has been counted from April 28 when one-day special session of the Assembly was held.
In this session, however, some bills could be introduced as only one bill was tabled and passed during the budget session. A day each will be reserved for private member’s bills and private member’s resolutions. During budget session of the Legislature, last three days reserved for private member’s bills and resolutions were lost in the din caused by protests of MLAs from different parties including ruling National Conference over Waqf bill passed by the Parliament.
“Number of questions to be called from the MLAs in the session will be five each starred and un-starred. In budget session, 10 each starred and un-starred questioned are called from the legislators,” the sources said. The starred questions are debated during Question Hour while only written reply is given for un-starred questions.
Number of private member’s bills and private member’s resolutions to be submitted by the MLAs, for which a day each will be reserved, will be decided by the Speaker once duration of the session is finalized.
The Parliament as well as most of the States have three sessions in a year including budget, Monsoon and winter sessions. However, the Jammu and Kashmir Legislature has only two sessions-budget session in Jammu and one brief session in Srinagar. The process has been going on for past many years now.
The practice is being followed as the Government rotates to Jammu for six months of winter and Srinagar for six months of summer. Earlier, the Civil Secretariat also used to move to Jammu and Srinagar but the practice was abandoned in 2021.
However, Omar Abdullah Government has announced that it will restore the practice of Durbar Move.
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