There has been no Question Hour in the Delhi Assembly so far this year, depriving people of crucial information about the functioning of the government.
Moreover, it was held only twice in 2023 and on five occasions in 2022, according to the Assembly website.
A Question Hour is the first hour of a sitting of the Assembly during which legislators may obtain information about any aspect of administration, including government schemes and policies, by submitting their queries in advance.
The Ministers concerned may either respond orally or table their answers in the House in a written form.
In the past, information critical of the government such as the amount of money spent on a particular project or scheme have come out through the answers to these questions.
So far this year, the Assembly functioned for 24 days but did not conduct Question Hour despite a demand for it from the Opposition BJP.
No Special Mentions
During the two-day Assembly session that ended on September 27, even Special Mentions were not read out. Special Mentions is a device under which House members may raise issues with the permission of the Speaker by giving a notice before the House convenes for the day.
Ministers may even skip answering Special Mentions. This time, members’ queries were not read out by them, instead deemed read by the Chair.
Speaker Ram Niwas Goel told The Hindu that to have a Question Hour, there should be a gap of 15 days between the starting of an Assembly session and its announcement.
“Also, after the amendment to the GNCTD [Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi] Act in May 2023, officials stopped giving answers to a large number of questions. When the Question and Reference Committee of the Assembly called some of the officials to appear before it, they replied in writing that they are not bound to appear before the Assembly Committee and they are not bound to reply to questions by MLAs. That is why, we did not have a Question Hour during the Budget session earlier this year,” the Speaker said.
About fewer Question Hours in 2021 and no such segment in 2020, the Speaker said due to COVID-19, Assembly sessions were called on short notice and that too for fewer number of days.
Published – September 30, 2024 01:20 am IST