Legislature passes 16 bills in 2 days before the speaker adjourned the house sine die.
Even as the indefinite dharna by Opposition parties in the state legislature demanding a CBI probe into illegal mining entered the fifth day today, with the Congress and JD(S) legislators spending another night in the vicinity of both houses, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka ensured the passage of 10 bills without any discussion. In all, the house passed 16 bills without a discussion.
Amidst noisy protests by the opposition parties the government managed to pass the Karnataka Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2010, to empower the anti-graft body with more powers. K G Bopaiah, speaker of the Assembly, put the bills to voice vote and declared that they got the House’s approval before adjourning the house sine die.
With the passage of the Karnataka Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill 2010, the ruling BJP has honoured its promise of giving more powers to the institution. The promise was made while persuading Lok Ayukta Santosh Hegde to withdraw his resignation recently.
The bill empowers the ombudsman agency with suo motu powers to investigate corruption charges against officials upto the level of chief secretary.
“This is the first time in the history of Karnataka that so many bills, including the finance bill, were passed without any discussion. This is an insult to the people of the state. It’s a goonda administration and Yeddyurappa is a goonda chief minister,” T B Jayachandra, deputy leader of opposition Congress, told reporters.
The House also gave its nod to three finance bills — the Supplementary Estimates (First Installment) Bill, The Karnataka Appropriation (No 2) Bill 2010 and the Karnataka Appropriation (No 3) Bill 2010, under which demands for grants of 28 departments have been approved.
Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has already rejected the opposition demand for a CBI enquiry into the alleged illegal mining, insisting that the on-going Lok Ayukta inquiry was adequate to deal with the matter.
Congress and JD(S) members came to the House wearing black bands and shouted slogans demanding the resignation of the chief minister. While the Congress and JD(S) members raised slogan “Karnataka bacchao”, the BJP men countered them with “Congress hatao”.
Earlier this morning, Yeddyurappa called on Governor H R Bhardwaj, who is gunning for the removal of Reddy brothers from the state ministry, and conveyed the government’s stand against a CBI inquiry into the illegal mining scam at this stage.
Yeddyurappa, accompanied by state home minister Dr V S Acharya and minister for law and parliamentary affairs S Suresh Kumar, held discussions with the governor for about 40 minutes at the Raj Bhavan.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Yeddyurappa said, “It was a cordial meeting with the governor and I explained to him the prevailing developments and the steps taken to strengthen the institution of Lok Ayukta.”
The governor was also informed that the illegal mining was under Lok Ayukta probe. He said, against the backdrop of Bhardwaj meeting President Pratibha Patil and Union home minister P Chidambaram and raising the issue of continuance of Reddy brothers, facing charges of illegal mining, in the ministry.
Sticking to his government stand of not referring the illegal mining issue to CBI investigation, Yeddyurappa said he had told the Governor “now it is not proper to entrust the matter to CBI probe.”
If we do it now, it would further delay the enquiry process.”
