Access to PC Meetings
Following limited television coverage of parliamentary sittings, public appetite has grown for greater knowledge of how the Jatiya Sangsad works and the elected representatives of various constituents of it are faring. This has been regarded by most people as an instruction in democracy at work whatever may be the degree of disappointment one encountered in the process.
Happily for the media people, this general-type JS exposure with a time-limit on it that one saw slotted over BTV may now have a new, far more enriching dimension to it. For the first time perhaps, we have come pretty close to seeing that limited and somewhat controversial information dissemination exercise being replaced by a transparent view being offered of the working of the parliamentary committees.
The ball has been set rolling by none other than intrepid Suranjit Sengupta who as chairman of the parliamentary committee on law ministry has held out an open invitation to the pressmen to attend all the meetings of the committee he heads. Quickly on the heels, S M Akram who chairs the rather sensitive public accounts committee has purportedly endorsed Sengupta's generous offer, thereby apparently stirring the placid waters of the parliament's inner world girdled by the cold corridors of the lake-side Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban. Sengupta says in support of journalistic access to his meetings that a parliamentary committee has 'the power to regulate its own procedure' and thereby allow it. But some other committee heads tend to differ saying that an amendment will be needed to the Rules of Procedure because the latter envisages "the sittings of a committee to be held in private."
Ever since the non-minister MPs have started heading the JS committees the latter have become more representative and potent bodies. The AL government has marked a departure from practice there. The ruling party is expected to do the same to give the newsmen an access to JS committee meetings.
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