West Bengal assembly withdraws 2009 Bill passed during Left Front regime

KOLKATA: The West Bengal Assembly today passed a resolution to withdraw a bill on safeguarding the interest of depositors in chitfunds passed during the Left Front regime which would be replaced by a new one brought by the present Trinamool Congress government.

The motion for withdrawal of the West Bengal Protection of Investors in Financial Establishments Bill 2009 was passed through a division which was sought by the Opposition.

Earlier, introducing the motion in the House, Parliamentary Affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said that in 2009, the bill was passed in the assembly which was reserved by the West Bengal governor.

He said that the Centre had returned the bill as it had been decided to recast the legislation in order to strenghthen it.

Opposing the method in which the motion for withdrawal was introduced, senior CPI(M) member and Leader of the Opposition Surya Kanta Mishra said that since the bill was passed in the House, the communication route should have been from the President to the governor and then to the Speaker.

The Centre did not hold any constitutional right to intervene. This was totally against democratic norms, he said.

Mishra said that in order to protect investors, the state government should not stay neutral when fraudsters were duping investors as it would strengthen their hands.

In his reply, Chatterjee said that the Left Front did nothing to deal with these companies as no follow-up action was taken when a similar bill of 2003 was returned by the president for being faulty and incomplete.

He said that the since the present government was introducing a stronger bill, it was necessary to withdraw the previous one as per the Constitution.