No point in continuing as Parliament panel head: Jairam Ramesh

Senior Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has said that there is no point in continuing as Chairman of a Parliamentary Standing Committee when the Modi government has "bulldozed" three important Bills without referring to the panel concerned.

Ramesh heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

He was referring to the passage of Bills that "radically" amend the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and the Bill to set up the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, as he felt these Bills should have been scrutinised by the panel headed by him.

"Three very important Bills bulldozed through Parliament these past few days were deliberately not referred to the Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change," he tweeted.

He also said, not only that, the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019 on which the Committee submitted a comprehensive report with many substantive suggestions has been withdrawn. The Modi government has instead bypassed it with the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022.

"Under these circumstances, I see little value in continuing as the Chairman of this Standing Committee, the subjects of which are very close to my heart and fit my educational and professional background. All that is irrelevant in this age of self-styled Sarvagyaani and Vishwaguru. The Modi government has turned yet another institutional mechanism worthless," he added.

Besides Ramesh, Shashi Tharoor and Abhishek Singhvi are the only Congress MPs who head three of the 24 department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees. Tharoor heads the panel on Chemical and Fertilisers, while Singhvi heads the panel on Commerce

Ramesh had earlier questioned the setting up of Joint Committees of Parliament to look into the amendment bills on biodiversity and forest conservation by "bypassing" the Standing Committee.

"Parliamentary sovereignty is respected by ensuring Bills aren't improperly classified as Money Bills to avoid voting in the Upper House. It is ensured by referring Bills to the appropriate Standing and Select Committees as per protocol instead of a Joint Committee of Parliament when it strikes the government's fancy, such as in the case of CAA, the amendments to the PCA and more recently the Biodiversity Amendment Bill," Ramesh had written to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar last December.

In April this year, he again wrote to Dhankhar objecting to referring the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 to a joint committee, claiming that the latter allowed the government to "deliberately circumvent" the Standing Committee concerned "simply because" he happened to head it.