The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2012, and the Chemical Weapons Convention (Amendment) Bill, 2012, were passed in the Lower House amid pandemonium.
Defending the move to pass the bills, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said while it is "unfortunate" that the bills had to be passed without discussion, "I feel it was necessary, therefore they were passed in a din...Some bills have a deadline," he said outside Parliament House.
Minister of state for Chemicals and Fertilizers Srikant Jena, who had piloted the bill on chemical weapons, said no member had objected to its provisions. "They had supported it," he said, rejecting suggestions that a discussion would have helped the government understand the objections of the opposition.
The bill prohibits transfer of specified toxic chemicals from and to a country which is not party to the instrument.
The Chemical Weapons Convention (Amendment) Bill, 2012, is part of an international obligation which has already received the nod of the Rajya Sabha.
The bill on AIIMS will help the Centre set up AIIMS-like institutes across India by a notification.
The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2012, will also replace a recent ordinance which allowed the six AIIMS-like institutes to become operational from September, 2012.
"The six states in which the institutes were established had requested the central government to make them operational urgently and to commence the academic session in September, 2012," the Statement of Objects and Reasons said, adding that it made the Centre bring out the ordinance.
