Lok Sabha Speaker constitutes committee to sanction leave of MPs

New Delhi, Feb 25 (PTI) Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has formed a committee, chaired by BJP member Biplab Kumar Deb, to review the leave applications of House members regarding their absence from proceedings.

The 15-member committee was constituted on Monday as the Punjab and Haryana High Court is hearing a petition filed by Lok Sabha member Amritpal Singh, who is detained in Dibrugarh jail, seeking permission to attend the Parliament session.

Singh had contended that he stood to lose his membership of the Lok Sabha if he remained absent from the House for 60 days.

The second part of the Budget session will commence on March 10 and conclude on April 4.

Elected to the Lok Sabha from the Khadoor Sahib constituency in the general elections last year, Singh has been detained in Assam under the National Security Act since 2023.

The Committee on Absence of Members from the Sittings of the House is chaired by Deb, a former Tripura chief minister, and includes 14 members: Saumitra Khan, Gyaneshwar Patil, Jai Prakash, Gopal Thakur, Mansukhbhai Vasava (all BJP), Anand Bhadauria (SP), Asit Kumar Mal (Trinamool), Gowaal Padavi, V K Sreekandan, and Prashant Padole (Congress), Amra Ram (CPI-M), Kesineni Sivanath (TDP), and Nalin Soren (JMM).

The Lok Sabha Speaker also constituted the Committee on Petitions, with BJP member Chandra Prakash Joshi as its Chairman.

The committee includes Anto Antony, Sukhdeo Bhagat, and Rajmohan Unnithan (all Congress), Mitesh Patel, Raju Bista, Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Manju Sharma, Vishnu Datt Sharma (all BJP), Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer (AAP), Bastipati Nagaraju (TDP), Rajkumar Sangwan (RLD), Devesh Shakya (SP), and Abhay Kumar Sinha (RJD).

Currently, both committees have 14 members, with one vacant seat each. PTI SKU SKU ARD ARD ARD

Source: PTI