Parliamentary panel's predicament over Criminal Law Bill after Ordinance

NEW DELHI: In the wake of government bringing an ordinance on crimes against women, a Parliamentary committee examining a similar bill, introduced in Lok Sabha last year, today decided to seek the views of the Rajya Sabha Chairman on whether the legislation was still "alive".

Members of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Ministry also expressed doubts whether examining the Criminal Law (Amendment) was necessary after the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance was issued yesterday to deal with similar crimes.

Chairman of the Standing Committee M Venkaiah Naidu (BJP) is learnt to have decided to meet Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari to get his views on the issue and to ascertain whether the legislation was still "alive".

The Standing Committee on Home Ministry is serviced by the Rajya Sabha secretariat.

A fresh bill to replace the ordinance is likely to be introduced in Parliament during the coming budget session.

Naidu is also understood to have told the panel that it can still go ahead with examining the bill and give its report to Parliament.

Some members are understood to have termed the timing of the ordinance ahead of the budget session as "unprecedented".

The ordinance contains 22 clauses and of these, 11 have been taken from the pending Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2012 introduced in Lok Sabha in December last year either wholly or substantially.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram told a press conference here today that the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the 11 clauses taken from the pending Bill would be considered by the government at a later stage.

The Bill, along with the recommendations of the Justice J S Verma committee, were recently referred to the Standing Committee.