Parliament Special Session mystery deepens as reply to RTI is refused

 TMC Leader, Derek O’Brien tweeted, “Two working days to go before the Special Parliament Session begins and still not a word on the agenda. Only two people know! And we still call ourselves a Parliamentary democracy”. In a subsequent tweet, he wrote, seven hours after this dose, the government puts out an agenda for the Parliament Special Session. However, the agenda has a caveat ‘not to be taken as exhaustive’.  Significantly the new session of Parliament began to see a discussion on Parliament’s 75-year journey and take up for consideration four bills, including one on appointment of election commissioners. In fact the four bills included the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2023 that amends the Advocates Act, 1961, while the Press and Registration of Periodicals Bill, 2023 repeals the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867. Besides, ‘The Post Office Bill, 2023’ has also been listed in the Lok Sabha business. The bill was earlier introduced in Rajya Sabha on 10 August 2023 and it repeals the Indian Post Office Act, 1898. All said and done, the unusual timing of the session has left everyone wondering, even though the main standout feature on the listed agenda is a special discussion on Parliament’s journey of 75 years starting from the “Samvidhan Sabha” (Constituent Assembly). The government came out with a tentative agenda only when law experts and opposition leaders made their opposition known, suggesting that summoning a Special Session of the Parliament without revealing the agenda is improper and unprecedented. And now comes the twist with RTI activist PP Kapoor after government’s refusal to give copy of the agenda and file noting of the special session of Parliament alleging the mystery over the motive has deepened. Senior journalist Dhirendra Awasthi observed that it seems that this special session was called under some secret agenda, that is why the government is not making the information public. It is also clear from this that the government is hiding the secret behind suddenly calling this special session of Parliament from the public.