LBA bill goes to Indian parliament again
Indian parliament will once again go through the motions of passing the constitution amendment bill to ratify the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh due to an error in drafting the legislation.
Both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha passed the bill with total unanimity on Wednesday and Thursday in a major step to implement the long-pending 1974 Indira-Mujib boundary pact.
However, in a hurry to push through the bill in both houses of parliament, the error remained undetected in the document, which came to notice later.
The drafting error in the constitutional amendment bill on India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement was the 100th constitutional amendment passed by parliament.
When introduced as a bill, it was numbered 119th constitutional amendment because that list includes proposed legislations. Once passed, the number had to change to 100th amendment bill because several constitution amendment bills are introduced but the actual number of those which get the nod from parliament is less.
The official amendment was carried out in the short title of the bill but due to an oversight, the same amendment could not be carried out in the schedules of the bill.
Officials said the bill will have to be passed by parliament again.
They said the error happened due to “haste” and from lack of careful reading of the text of the bill.
Rajya Sabha Chairman and Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari was understood to be upset over such an error in drafting the bill, according to officials familiar with the matter.
After carrying out the necessary correction, the bill will be first taken up in the Lok Sabha hopefully on Monday and later in the Rajya Sabha, parliament sources said.
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