Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Mar 28: A high drama was witnessed in the Legislative Assembly today when a bill pertaining to increase in Employees Provident Funds had to be passed twice within a span of half an hour-first with an amendment of NPP leader and former Minister Harshdev Singh and then in its original form excluding the amendment. The Lawmakers approved a total of eight legislations in the Assembly with just five members on the Opposition benches-three from NPP and one each from JSM and PDF.
All eight legislations were passed unanimously in the absence of PDP, BJP and BJP breakaway group. Only three MLAs of NPP (Harshdev Singh, Balwant Singh Mankotia and Yashpal Kundal), one from JSM (Ashwani Sharma) and one from PDF (Hakim Mohammad Yasin) were present in the House when the bills were passed.
All eight bills were passed within 70 minutes.
Surprisingly, besides Harshdev Singh, there were only three MLAs-Ashwani Sharma (JSM), Ashok Kumar (Congress) and Balwant Singh Mankotia (NPP), who spoke briefly on the bills.
The amendments moved by PDP MLAs including Abdul Haq Khan, Choudhary Zulfikar Ali and Nizam-ud-Din Bhat to Jammu and Kashmir Land Laws (amendment bill) lapsed as they were not present in the House.
While the PDP and BJP had been boycotting the session for past several days on different issues, the BJP breakaway group MLAs were also not present in the House when the bills were taken up for consideration and passing in the Assembly.
When bill No. 5 was taken up for consideration and passing for carrying out an amendment in the EPF enabling an employee to raise his contribution from 10.33 per cent to 14 per cent as against employer’s share of 12 per cent, Harshdev pointed out that according to him, there was clerical mistake in the bill as the statement of objects and reasons and bill have contradictory figures of increase.
Labour and Employment Minister Ajay Sadhotra, who had moved the bill for consideration and passing initially insisted on correctness of the figures mentioned in the bill. However, the NPP MLA pressed that a wrong bill would be passed if it was put to vote in original form.
Speaker Mubarak Gul also told Mr Sadhotra that there can be a clerical mistake in the bill. As Harshdev insisted that there was contradiction in the figures (12 per cent and 14 per cent) in the bill, Mr Sadhotra agreed to the amendment moved by the NPP MLA and proposed that the bill should be passed with amendment.
The Speaker put the bill to vote, which was unanimously passed by the Assembly along with amendment of Harshdev Singh.
Few minutes later, Assembly Secretary Mohammad Ramzan was seen speaking to Law Minister Saifullah Mir, Planning, Labour and Employment Minister Ajay Sadhotra and NPP MLA Harshdev Singh. Later, he also briefed Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather. Some officers of Labour and Employment Department, sitting in the official gallery, also sounded the Minister that there was nothing wrong with the original bill but a wrong legislation has been passed by adopting the amendment of Harshdev Singh.
Though the mistake was detected within minutes after the legislation was approved in the Assembly, the Speaker advised the Minister to wait till pending bills were cleared and he would take up the matter later.
After other bills were passed, Mr Sadhotra urged the Chair that Harshdev’s amendment was not required to the bill. Mr Gul said he had given time to both sides and told the Minister that he himself had admitted clerical mistake in the bill. However, he asserted that at the same time he didn’t want a wrong bill to be passed as it again would come to the House for amendment.
Harshdev Singh insisted that the bill had clerical mistake as on one side the Labour Department was seeking enhancement in EPF from 12 to 14 per cent and, on the other side, it was asking for hike from 10.33 per cent 14 per cent. “The bill has been very casually drafted”, he lamented.
Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather admitted that there was some confusion in the House earlier. He clarified that EPF Act was amended last year in which employer’s contribution was raised from 8.33 per cent to 12 per cent but the employee’s share, which was 10.33 per cent was not raised.
“It was the employee’s share, which the bill now proposed to raise to 14 per cent in which 12 per cent contribution would be compulsory and two per cent discretionary”, he said, adding the bill was alright as it proposed to raise employee’s share from 10.33 per cent to 14 per cent while employer’s share has already been raised from 8.33 per cent to 12 per cent.
He pointed out that Harshdev’s amendment has wrongly been adopted. Harshdev said he had pointed out that figures mentioned in objects and reasons were not in consonance with the bill.
“There is no problem in the bill. I urge the Speaker to review the decision and pass the bill in original form (deleting amendment of Harshdev Singh), which had earlier been adopted”, Mr Rather said.
Mr Gul urged Harshdev to withdraw his amendment and allow the bill to be passed in original form. The NPP MLA withdrew his amendment and the bill was again passed without any amendment.
The Assembly today also passed a bill for amending law related to juveniles in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection by providing them proper care, protection and treatment by catering to their development needs and adjudication and disposition of matters in the interest of children for their ultimate rehabilitation.
The bill, moved for consideration and passing by Social Welfare Minister Sakina Itoo was adopted along with an amendment of Harshdev Singh substituting the word `at least’ with `less than’.
The bill was passed unanimously.
The Juvenile bill provided for constitution of one or more Juvenile Justice Boards for a district or a group of districts or each division of the State comprising Judicial Magistrate of First Class and two social workers forming a bench. It provided for establishment and maintenance of Observation Homes, Special Homes, Children’s Homes and Shelter Homes respectively for a district, a group of districts or each division of the State.
It also provided for constitution of Child Welfare Committees for every district, which shall consist of Chairperson and four members.
Ms Itoo said the bill was aimed at providing care and protection to neglected children. She said the bill proposed same age of 18 years for boys and girls to be treated as juveniles. Earlier, the girl up to 16 years and boy up to 18 years were treated as juveniles.
The Assembly also gave nod to the bill for constitution of Shrine Board for better management, administration and governance of Shri Mata Sukrala Devi ji and Shri Mata Bala Sundari Ji shrines falling in Billawar tehsil of Kathua district.
Minister for Cooperatives and Fisheries Dr Manohar Lal Sharma had worked hard for constitution of Shrine Board for the two widely revered shrines and ensure its passage.
Introduced for consideration and passing by Minister of State for Tourism Sajjad Ahmad Kitchloo on behalf of Tourism Minister Ghulam Ahmad Mir, the bill provided that the Divisional Commissioner, Jammu would be chairperson of the Board while the Deputy Commissioner, Kathua would be vice chairperson.
Additional CEO of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, Director Tourism, SDM Billawar, two Hindu religious persons, one woman Hindu religious or social worker, two distinguished persons connection with administration, legal affairs, financial matters, press etc would be the members of the Boards.
Executive Officer of the two shrines would be member secretary.
If the Divisional Commissioner, Jammu is not Hindu, the DC Kathua would be chairperson of the Board. If the DC Kathua is also not Hindu, his/her subordinate would serve as member. A person professing faith in Hinduism would head the Board if both the Divisional Commissioner Jammu and the DC Kathua were not Hindus.
Mr Kitchloo said the concerned MLA would be a special invitee to the Board meetings.
Ashwani Sharma (JSM), Harshdev Singh and Balwant Singh Mankotia (NPP) welcomed the Government initiative to set up Shrine Board for the two shrines.
The bill was passed unanimously.
The Assembly also unanimously approved a bill moved by Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather for substituting the word Line of Control (LoC) instead of Line of Actual Control (LAC) by amending J&K Valued Added Tax Act.
Mr Rather said the word LAC had wrongly been mentioned instead of LoC for providing relief to traders dealing in trade at Salamabad-Chakoti and Chakan-Da-Bagh routes.
He said the word LoC is used in context of India’s un-demarcated boundary with Pakistan while word LoC is used for India’s boundary with China.
Harshdev Singh said the concessions enjoyed by the traders so far due to clerical mistake were illegal and wanted to know from the Government whether they would be withdrawn. Mr Rather replied that the mistake was being ratified retrospectively. “If any irregularity or illegality had been committed it would be ratified”, he said as the House approved the bill, when put to vote by the Speaker, unanimously.
The Lower House approved another bill unanimously that proposed to increase sitting fee of the legislators from Rs 500 to Rs 1000.
Moved for consideration and passing by Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Saifullah Mir, the bill proposed that the legislators would be paid Rs 1000 per sitting instead of Rs 500. The amount would be paid only if the legislators attend the meetings, he added.
To a query raised by Harshdev Singh, Saifullah said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has already agreed to the proposal for raising Medical Allowance for former legislators from Rs 1000 to Rs 5000.
“We will soon be introducing another amendment to the bill to increase Medical Allowance of former legislators”, he added.
Another bill moved by Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, which sought substitution of date 31st January, 2011 to 31st January 2013 for receiving the cases of adhoc/consolidated/contractual employees from various Departments for regularization, also got the Assembly’s nod.
Mr Rather said if previous date was taken into account, many cases of regularization would have been left out as the Departments delayed the process of forwarding of cases for regularization.
The Departments were given a final notice to forward the cases till 15th January 2013. Only the cases sent till the final deadline would be accepted”, the Finance Minister said.
Referring to Harshdev’s amendment for increasing the time limit to March 2014, Mr Rather said this could lead to manipulation. Harshdev later withdrew the amendment leading to unanimous passing of the bill.
Yet another bill moved by Mr Rather on behalf of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah got the Assembly nod. It proposed that the married women can apply for the Government jobs in the districts/divisions where they were married provided that their husbands had been permanent residents of those districts/divisions for 15 years.
Earlier, it had been proposed that the women should be resident of that district/division for 15 years, which was challenged in the court of law. The court had ordered that the clause was harsh in case of women married to other district/division.
The Assembly passed another bill unanimously, which was moved by Minister of State for Revenue and Relief Aijaz Khan proposing amendments in Jammu and Kashmir Transfer of Property Act and Jammu and Kashmir Alienation of Land Act.
Three PDP MLAs including Abdul Haq Khan, Choudhary Zulfikar Ali and Nizam-ud-Din Bhat had moved amendments to the bill but they lapsed as they were not present in the House.
Follow our WhatsApp channel