No virtual meetings of Parliamentary panels right now, physical meetings after Covid-19 situation improves: Sources

The demand for virtual meetings of the Parliamentary Standing Committee has been once again declined by Rajya Sabha Secretariat citing lack of rules even as it pointed out that physical meetings could be considered shortly once the current Covid-19 situation improves, sources said on Friday.

The Secretariat is learnt to have responded to a letter to Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu by Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge in which he demanded that Parliamentary panels be allowed to convene online to discuss the pandemic situation.

The Secretariat's letter referred to a decision taken last year by Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to refer the issue of holding virtual meetings of committees to the Committee on Rules in both the Houses.

Officials had earlier briefed both Naidu and Birla that a decision has to be taken by the Parliament to allow virtual meetings as the presiding officers cannot do it on their own. The Committees on Rules was to examine the existing provisions and confidentiality of the proceedings in a virtual meeting.

"As physical meetings of the committees were being held regularly, following the (Covid-19) guidelines strictly, the matter rested there and the situation had not arisen for consideration of the matter by the Rules Committees in both the Houses. The meetings of the Committees can be considered shortly once the situation improves," sources quoted the letter as saying.

The letter also said the issue of confidentiality can be resolved during the Session as any amendment to the rules can be approved by the Houses only after the matter is considered by the Rules Committees.

In his reaction, Congress Chief Whip in Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "I am not surprised. In spite of repeated requests for almost a year, virtual meetings of Standing Committees have been inexplicably disallowed. The Prime Minister has all his meetings virtually, but 30 odd MPs cannot. Nowhere in the world has Parliament run away from its duties like in India."

"A wasteful new Parliament building is being constructed in the midst of a national catastrophe, and it is considered an “essential service”. But a simple rule cannot be changed to allow virtual meetings of Standing Committees," he added.

Separately, he said, "I had asked the Chairman last year to resolve this bogus confidentiality issue."

Ramesh, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, has been demanding that the panel be allowed to be held online.

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O'Brien also wrote to Naidu to allow Parliamentary Committee meetings to be held virtually.