JOIN USExplained | What is Rajya Sabha's Rule 267?
With the Monsoon Session of the Parliament underway, the Opposition has been consistently asking for a discussion surrounding the Pegasus snooping row, farmer’s issues, rising fuel prices, and other matters.
Sessions have also been getting adjourned due to ‘ruckus’ in the House.
However, the Opposition is determined to challenge the ruling BJP government on issues of ‘national importance’.
Amid all this chaos has been a new term that is catching the attention of people – Rule 267 of the Rajya Sabha.
The Rajya Sabha defines Rule 267, under ‘suspension of rules’, as an instance where “any member, may, with the consent of the Chairman, move that any rule may be suspended in its application to a motion related to the business listed before the Council of that day and if the motion is carried, the rule in question shall be suspended for the time being.”
Therefore, it is simply the provision for a House member to request the Chairman to suspend issues listed out for discussion on a particular day in order to deliberate a separate issue.
The website adds: “Provided further that this rule shall not apply where specific provision already exists for suspension of a rule under a particular chapter of the Rules”.
Usually, such requests are not accepted by the chairman, with 3 exceptions in 2015 and 2016.
The last time the rule was used to request a discussion was in November 2016 – the issue in question being ‘demonetisation'.
“I am receiving 10 to 15 notices under Rule 267 every day on different issues,” said House Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu, according to The Telegraph.
Naidu, who has chaired the House since 2017, rejected them all.
He has previously shot down hundreds of such requests in the past. They include topics like GST and the Rafale deal,
A TMC member, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, was one of many MPs submitting notices under Rule 267 — unsuccessfully trying to initiate a discussion around the Pegasus case.
“If matters of national importance are not discussed in Parliament, where will they be discussed? Will they be discussed in coffee houses?”, he was quoted telling the publication.