A few days ago, former Congress President Sonia Gandhi had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for the agenda of calling a special session of Parliament.
The questions raised by the government on the reason for calling the special session two days ago were answered. Despite this, the opposition doubts the intentions of the government.
The opposition alleges that the government is hiding something regarding the agenda of the session. It is noteworthy that there is a formal all-party meeting on 17th September.
The special session of Parliament will begin from September 18. In the bulletin issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, it has been said that a total of four bills are to be passed in the session.
These include the bill for the appointment and service conditions of the Chief Election Commissioner and the other two commissioners.
Keep in mind that this bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in the monsoon session. In this context, Chief Justice Justice DY Chandrachud and the constitutional bench were under pressure on the government that there should be a constitutional process to select election commissioners.
The government cannot appoint anyone as Election Commissioner on its own will. The Supreme Court’s suggestion was that the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice should together choose who should be appointed to the post of Election Commissioner.
The government has rejected this formula and created its own panel which will include the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and Leader of Opposition.
The Advocates Amendment Bill and the Registration of Press and Periodical Publications Amendment Bill have been passed in the Rajya Sabha during the monsoon session.
The Post Office Amendment Bill has also been introduced in the Rajya Sabha in the monsoon session. It is being said that these bills could have been passed even in the winter session of Parliament.
In the context of these bills, there does not appear to be any immediate constitutional hurdle that a special session of Parliament had to be called.
There is no mention of the term ‘special session’ anywhere in the Constitution but it generally empowers the government to summon all the MPs of the country by order of the President in situations involving important legislative and national events.
So far seven special sessions of Parliament have been called in this country. A special session of Parliament was called on 15 August 1997 on the completion of 50 years of independence. This is the eighth special session of the Parliament.
Overall, it can be said that this will be a special Parliament session in which very common issues and bills will be introduced and passed.
