Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar reconstituted eight department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees (DRSCs), including the appointment of senior Congress Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram to the 31-member Home panel, the Upper House of Parliament announced on Tuesday.
The Rajya Sabha Chairman appointed Chidambaram to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs at a time when the panel is debating three proposed bills that would replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), respectively, as Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Sakshya, and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the three bills in the Parliament on August 11.
There are 24 DRSCs, or committees related to departments. These committees each have 31 members: 10 from the Rajya Sabha and 21 from the Lok Sabha. P Bhattacharya of the Congress left the position vacant, which led to P Chidambaram’s appointment. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a member of the party’s Lok Sabha delegation, is already on the Home panel, which is led by BJP MP Brij Lal.
A notification, dated August 28, issued by the Rajya Sabha, said, “The Chairman, Rajya Sabha, has in consultation with the Speaker, Lok Sabha, re-constituted the eight Department–related Parliamentary Standing Committees, coming under the administrative jurisdiction of the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, w.e.f. September 13, 2023, as follows.”
Apart from it, the Rajya Sabha Chairman also appointed Congress MP Jairam Ramesh as the chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
Meanwhile, the chairs of six major parliamentary committees — Home, IT, Defence, External Affairs, Finance and Health — are all with the BJP or its allies.