New Delhi: The Government on Thursday tested the patience of the Opposition on two controversial legislations, one against triple talaq and another which seeks to amend the Right to Information Act, and got both the Bills passed, the first by the Lok Sabha and the second by the Rajya Sabha.
The Opposition led by the Congress staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha in protest against the ministers intimidating the MPs by going to their desks during the voting on its motion for sending the RTI Bill to the House select committee.
The motion was defeated by 117 to 75 votes. All opposition members came in the well even before the result was announced by the chair. Opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said what happened was a "namuna" (sample) of how the BJP got the majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
Backed by a thumping majority in the Lok Sabha, the government got the Talaq Bill passed without difficulty, with 302 votes on every division, after a day-long discussion, and is prepared to discuss it in the Rajya Sabha on Friday for voting.
Replying to the debate in the Lok Sabha, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad rejected the Opposition's demand to have a similar law for women in all religions, pointing out that triple talaq is practised only in one community and so the law banning it cannot be applied to any other community.
The Congress, Trinamul Congress and other opposition parties staged a walk out even when the clause-wise voting was taking place to protest against the government insisting on the provision of jail up to three years for the husband who divorces his wife by triple talaq, which has been already declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The government is trying to enact the law since September 2018 and it had to bring the Ordinances thrice, the last one in February, on the Bill getting stuck in the Rajya Sabha.
The Law Minister insisted that the law is a must for gender equality and justice since several hundred cases of triple talaq have been reported despite the Supreme Court striking down the practice as illegal and unconstitutional.
"When Hindus and Muslims are jailed under dowry law or domestic violence act, no one objects. What is the objection in penalising this talaq practice that is illegal per se," Prasad asked. Some of the BJP's allies, including the Janata Dal (U), expressed their reservations and joined the Opposition walkout.
Replying to the debate on the RTI Act, Minister of State for Personnel in the PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh, pleaded that voting should not be numerical but on the merit of the Bill.
He also cited precedents of the previous UPA government getting bulk of the Bills passed without sending them to select or standing committees.
As many as 120 out of 180 Bills between 2004 and 2009 and 125 of 179 Bills between 2009 and 2014 were not sent to any committee for scrutiny, he underlined.
