Draft ready, UP Assembly likely to get new rule book

A committee headed by Principal Secretary (Vidhan Sabha) Pradeep Dubey has submitted the draft of the new rule book to Speaker Satish Mahana. In the upcoming Budget Session set to begin on February 20, the new rule book will be tabled in the Assembly after getting clearance from the 13-member Rules Committee of the House.

“The new rule book will be called “Rule Book, 2023”, instead of Rule Book 1958… Changes will not be made in the basic rules but in the procedures for implementing them. While I cannot reveal the rules before they are placed in the Assembly, but deliberations were made about making changes in the rules following digitisation as now every member has a tablet, and the Assembly proceedings have been digitised. Therefore, in order to adapt to the same, changes are being proposed in the time period required for informing the members about the Bills etc,” Speaker Mahana told The Indian Express.

“The existing rules that dated back to 1958 were drafted in English and were then translated into Hindi in such a way that it became difficult for most of the members to comprehend the exact nature of the rules. The new rules would be in such a language that they would be easy to understand,” the Speaker added.

Mahana said the draft committee deliberated on defining the exact nature of questions or topics that can be raised under different rules like 300, 311, 51 etc and added rules are likely to be introduced to ensure maximum questions can be taken up during Question Hour.

Changes are likely to be made in the rules regarding the duration of “Question Hour” among other things.

“Smaller states like Nagaland or Haryana with about 90 members, have Question Hour for one hour. But in a big state like Uttar Pradesh, with over 400 members, even 1 hour 20 minutes is not enough. All these will be taken into consideration,” Mahana said.

Some changes include defining the types of specific questions that could be raised under specific rules. Also, a minimum time period will be now required for informing the member about the Bills and members need to inform the House about the questions being raised, an official said.