90 days set for Committee to submit report on Women's quota

Amidst the hubbub created by opponents and supporters of the Women's Reservation Bill during the first meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Tuesday, a time- frame of three months has been suggested for the committee to complete its report.

Within the said period the committee would garner the opinions of different political parties comprising the public. Schedules have been fixed for regional sittings which are to be held in Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai next month.

The chairman of the committee headed by senior Congress MP E M Sudarsana later informed the media that five national and 45 regional parties have been requested to come up by June 10 to express their views to assist the committee in reaching a consensus.

The next meeting would be held on June 3 and 10 and by June 17 and 18 where party representatives could come and put forward their views.

Besides the nerve centre Delhi, meetings in Chennai on June 22-24, Kolkata on June 25-26 and a day later in Mumbai on June 27-28 would provide regional party representatives an opportunity to place their opinions. The public have been offered too, to submit their views in written or in person.

Earlier the meeting over the contentious issue of women reservation bill saw supporters and opponents at the loggerheads, seeking to provide 33 percent quota for women in Parliament and State Assemblies.

A number of suggestions already started flooding the committee such as it should study women's reservation process obtained at the panchayat level, rotation of seats etc. It was suggested in the meeting that the Secretary for the Panchayati Raj would brief the committee on the different aspects and forms of women's reservations in panchayats adopted by various State governments.

Some members raised their doubts over the question of rotation of seats that how would it be implemented. How the seats reserved for women in the Lok Sabha and State assemblies would be rotated?

As was expected the chief opponents of the bill-the RJD and the SP were in the forefront against the implementation of the bill in the present form and reiterated their voice for creating sub-quota for women belonging to OBCs, Muslims and Scheduled Castes and Tribes within the overall women’s quota.

The members favouring the bill comprising Brinda Karat of CPI (M) and Jayanti Natarajan of Congress vociferously came out in support of the bill and lambasted the opponents for uselessly raking the extraneous issues to delay the Bill pending for over a decade.

Initially, the Committee had no representation by women members. But recently, Brinda Karat of Communist Party of India (Marxist), Najma Heptulla of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Jayanti Natarajan of Congress have been brought on it.

The Bill was referred to the Committee after introducing in Rajya Sabha on the last day of the Budget session of Parliament.