On Friday, the third day of the Assembly session, Assembly Speaker Ritu Bhushan Khanduri took a strong stand when the issue of breach of privilege was raised in the House. Despite repeated instructions from the bench, he made sharp remarks terming the neglectful attitude of top officials towards elected public representatives as shameful and disappointing.
He said that there is a need to improve the training of administrative and other top officials to change their attitude. A letter will be sent to the training institutes in this regard on behalf of the Assembly. He called Chief Secretary Dr. SS Sandhu and gave instructions to take action in this regard.
The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly got angry when the cases of breach of privilege were repeatedly raised in the House. He said that MLAs are elected public representatives. Their protocol cannot be kept in mind. In a land of rituals like Uttarakhand, where gods reside, not giving respect to each other is very disappointing and shameful.
He said that letters will be sent to Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, Dr. RS Tolia, Uttarakhand Academy of Administration, Nainital and other institutes related to training of officers and engineers, so that they can also get training about following the protocol.
Earlier, senior Congress MLA Pritam Singh raised a strong objection to the attitude of PMGSY Chief Engineer RP Singh while proposing breach of privilege. He placed the details of the phone calls on 25th and 26th of August last month in the House. He told that despite repeated calls, the Chief Engineer kept avoiding talking. After several calls, he gave misleading information regarding his presence on August 26 in a phone conversation. He alleged that the officials are getting protection from invisible forces. For this reason the protocol of the MLAs is not followed. The government has failed to comply with the instructions of the bench in this regard. Leader of Opposition Yashpal Arya called it a very serious matter. He said that this attitude of the officers is fatal for democracy. If this increases the debate in future, the government cannot escape responsibility.
Leaders of Opposition Yashpal Arya and Pritam Singh welcomed the instructions of the bench regarding following the protocol. On the other hand, Assembly Speaker Ritu Bhushan Khanduri called Chief Secretary Dr. Sandhu in his room during lunch break and instructed the MLAs to respect the protocol. Irrigation Minister Satpal Maharaj was also present on this occasion.
