Rajya Sabha passes 7 key Bills in three and half hours

43 speeches by 14 MPs and 5 Ministers in 213 minutes -- that is what it took for the government to pass seven Bills, including two contentious ones that the Opposition wanted to be sent to Select Committee, in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday after the Opposition boycotted the House demanding revocation of suspension of eight of its MPs.

Altogether 14 MPs made 34 speeches during the debate on these Bills with Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar Reddy of TDP speaking on all the Bills followed by YSR Congress leader Vijayasai Reddy spoke on all Bills barring the one on taxation. JD(U) floor leader RCP Singh spoke on five Bills.

Four Ministers made nine speeches, including a short speech by Mansukh L Mandaviya while intervening during the debate on the bill on Forensic Universities. Except for Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishak, none of the Ministers spoke at the beginning of the debate of any Bill. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman topped the list of Ministers for moving three Bills, which were passed.

While the House started proceedings at 9 AM with Zero Hour lasting for 25 minutes, another 64 minutes were spent on the issue of suspension of MPs with Leader of House Tawarchand Gehlot, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and other leaders making their points.

It was at 10:29 AM that the legislative business started with a discussion on the bill to declare five newly-established Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) as institutions of national importance. The proceedings ended at 2:02 PM.

After passing the Indian Institutes of Information Technology Laws (Amendment) Bill was passed at 11:20 AM, the House then took up the contentious Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act aimed at removing cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities and removes stockholding limits on them was taken up.

This is one of four bills, which the Opposition wanted scrutiny by a Select Committee and one of the three agriculture-related Bills they were opposed to. It was passed at around 12 PM.

The fourth Bill the Opposition had problems with was the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill aimed at bringing cooperative banks under the supervision of the RBI in a bid to protect the interest of depositors. Around 12:45, this Bill also got the Rajya Sabha nod.

Then came the Companies (Amendment) Bill to remove penalties for certain offences, which was passed around 1:15 PM.

The National Forensic Sciences University Bill was passed at around 1:35 PM while Rashtriya Raksha University Bill by 1:50. The seventh and last Bill to be passed during the day was Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Bill.