New Delhi: The 17th Lok Sabha gets going from Monday with the pro-tem Speaker administering oath to the newly elected MPs over the next two days. The first session with 30 sittings is to go on until July 26. It''s both budget session and monsoon session. The government has convened a meeting of all political party leaders on the eve of the session on Sunday to discuss the agenda for the session. Topping its agenda is the anti-triple talaq bill criminalising the age-old practice of divorcing Muslim women at the spur of moment.
The Bill remained stuck in the first Modi government because of the Opposition refusing to agree on some of the harsh provisions. It is to be reintroduced first in the Lok Sabha and then taken to the Rajya Sabha where the government is expecting support of some regional parties to get it passed in this session. The Bill prescribes three years of jail to any Muslim man practising the triple talaq and he can get bail only from the magistrate before the trial begins if his wife concurs. The Opposition led by the Congress have objected to the jail term and sought the government compensation to the deserted wife and her children instead of the Bill requiring the husband to provide for their maintenance. How can a man in jail pay the maintenance, the opposition parties ask.
The government has been resorting to the course of three Ordinances so far after the Bill failed in the Rajya Sabha, the last being the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights) on Marriage Ordinance issued in February that was cleared by the Union Cabinet as a Bill on Wednesday for introduction in Parliament. After the first two days of the MPs taking oath, the Lok Sabha will meet on Wednesday to elect its Speaker, following which the President, Ramnath Kovind, will address a joint sitting of both the Houses in the Central Hall on Thursday.
