Aldona Congress MLA Adv Carlos Alvares Ferreira on Friday said that government departments delaying the vetting of private members’ bills moved by opposition members were committing a breach of privilege.
Speaking during protests by the Opposition that disrupted proceedings in the Goa Legislative Assembly, Ferreira demanded that the Legislature Secretariat establish its own in-house committee to scrutinise private members’ bills and submit them directly to the Speaker.
The protests followed the government’s failure to list private members’ bills on the designated date for discussion in the House.
Ferreira questioned why the Speaker’s Secretariat was dependent on government departments to vet such bills.
“Why is the speaker’s secretariat dependent on the government? The speaker is neutral, the speaker is to be playing a neutral role as the guardian of the assembly. If these departments are holding these bills and not sending, according to me that’s a breach of privilege,” Adv Carlos said.
He said the Legislature Secretariat should independently examine the bills and place them before the Speaker instead of forwarding them to government departments.
“You are holding and not allowing the speaker to make a decision on it. The secretariat of the legislature should itself have an in-house committee which should scrutinise and put it up before the speaker and not send it to the department because the government will not want,” he said.
Ferreira also said that in several legislative assemblies and in Parliament, in-house committees vet private members’ bills before submitting them to the Speaker for a decision.
He added that even ruling party legislators had raised demands regarding the issue.
“Ruling MLAs are also making the demand for scrapping 39A. Jit Arolkar has himself moved a private members bill,” he said.
Referring to an earlier protest by the Opposition at Azad Maidan, Ferreira said they were told to raise the issue inside the Assembly instead of protesting outside.
“When we went to protest at Azad Maidan, the message was: ‘This is not the forum, you come to the house.’ They made us withdraw the protest and said they will discuss it here. Today we are ready, we are here for a discussion; right or wrong, we want to see who supports us, who opposes us?” he said.
Ferreira questioned why the government was reluctant to allow discussion on the floor of the House.
“Why is the government not ready for a discussion on the floor of the house? Is the government scared it will get exposed? Will the government crack, will the government lose the majority because of this? Is this why they don’t want this to come up?” he asked.
He said he had received a copy of a letter sent by the Speaker to various departments seeking vetting of the bills, which had clearly stated that the bill had to be tabled on March 13 — a deadline that the departments failed to meet.
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