Hyderabad: President Pranab Mukherjee late on Wednesday evening sent the Telangana draft Bill to the AP Legislature and gave it six weeks to express its opinion.
Sources said that the draft of the AP State Reorganisation Bill has been sent to the chief secretary. He will in turn communicate it to the Presiding Officers of both the Houses.
The Legislature will now get time till the last week of January 2014.
As per Article 3 of the Statute, the President is required to put a definite timeframe for the Bill seeking creation of a new state, which will be sent to the concerned Legislature to obtain its views.
If the Legislature concerned does not want to express its views, the President will conclude that the views are deemed to have been obtained.
With the President sticking to convention and providing six weeks to the AP Legislature, the matter will be carried forward to the next year. Once he gets the Bill from the Legislature, the President will send it to the home ministry, which will put it before the Union Cabinet.
The Cabinet will approve the final Bill and send it back to the President to obtain his “consent” to introduce it to the two Houses of Parliament.
It is likely to be February, during the Vote-On-Account Budget Session of Parliament that the Bill will then come up.
Next: State MPs meet Prez for 3rd day
State MPs meet Prez for 3rd day
Hyderabad: Several state Congress MPs, who are divided on regional lines, met President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday with their respective requests on the Telangana Bill.
A delegation of nine Seemandhra MPs that included the six MPs who gave the notice for a no-confidence motion against the Manmohan Singh government, requested the President to study all the constitutional and legal issues involved in the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh state before he refers the Telangana Bill to the Andhra Pradesh Legislature for its views.
They also handed over the Telangana draft bill that was originally sent to Rashtrapati Bhavan by the Union Cabinet, which contains several loopholes that may give rise to constitutional problems.
They told the President that the government, after realising that the draft bill contained objections raised by the attorney general and law ministry, withdrew it and sent another draft bill without the objectionable paragraphs.
They said that even in the debate on formation of new states in the Constituent Assembly, the framers of the Constitution felt that the President will have to act independently as far as Article 3 is concerned, and need not follow the advice tendered by the Union Cabinet in respect of Article 74.
They requested him to take his own time and satisft himself with the provisions of the draft bill before sending it to the Legislature for its opinion.
A delegation of Telangana Congress MPs also met the President and requested him to send the Telangana Bill to the AP Legislature immediately. They told him that there is nothing new in the objections raised by Seemandhra legislators, and that he must expedite the process so that the Telangana Bill can be introduced in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament.
Union minister for HRD, M. M. Pallam Raju, wrote to the President giving details of what transpired in the Cabinet meeting that approved the draft bill, and how genuine constitutional concerns were ignored such as the status of the joint capital of Hyderabad, application of Article 371(D) etc.
