Opposition irked as key officials miss meeting on land bill

NEW DELHI: Sparks flew at the meeting of the parliamentary joint committee on the land bill on Thursday when non-NDA members took umbrage at the absence of key officials and called it an 'affront' to Parliament and the panel.

NCP boss Sharad Pawar took the lead in slamming the government over the truancy of the bureaucrats who couldn't make it for the scheduled meeting of the panel, just days before the start of the monsoon session on July 21.

The committee on July 6 had decided to summon secretaries of the ministries concerned on July 16 to listen to their views of the amendments to the 2013 act.

The members had decided that if the government was able to reply to their queries on July 16, the panel could take up clause-by-clause consideration of the bill from July 22. But none of the four secretaries, who were supposed to appear, could make it. The secretaries from legal affairs, legislative department, rural development and commerce ministries, and top officials from railways were expected to appear before the panel.

Government sources said while Amitabh Kanth, Secretary DIPP, was abroad for "Make in India" campaign, the other officials couldn't make it due to a scheduling clash with a meeting of the Union Cabinet.

Trinamool leader Derek O'Brien told TOI that it reflected the intent as this was the second time that the officials had failed to turn up. Earlier he tweeted: "Mockery or meeting? Last time Parliam cmtee on Land Bill didn't function because MPs turned up, govt officials did not. Repeated today? [sic]"

Significantly, the panel met a day after the government indicated at a meeting of the CMs that it was reconciled to put the contentious legislation on the back-burner following indulgence of the demand of over a dozen states that they be left free to frame their own land acquisition laws.