CA Bill passed in Rajya Sabha after it was put to vote for 200 times

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• Apr 6, 2022 | Dhupali Das

The debate on the Chartered Accountants, Cost and Works Accountants, and Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2022, including the response of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, lasted nearly two hours and twenty minutes. 

Digital desk: On Tuesday, the Rajya Sabha took 200 voice votes to passage a law as the House offered clause by clause approval, demonstrating the procedural rigours required in adopting legislation.

The debate on the Chartered Accountants, Cost and Works Accountants, and Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2022, including the response of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, lasted nearly two hours and twenty minutes. 

Although the voting on the 106 clauses and clause-by-clause modifications took more than 30 minutes, Rajya Sabha officials said.

As per the official from the RS Secretariat, this happened after a long time that a bill with so many provisions and revisions was passed with voting that took a long time.

Procedurally, if amendments are moved, each clause must be voted twice, depending on the number of members who move amendments to each clause.

CPI-M member John Brittas filed 163 notices of legislative changes to various clauses in the Bill and shifted nearly all of them during Bill's clause-by-clause consideration. Binoy Viswam of the CPI also proposed a few other amendments.

As all amendments must be put to the vote in the House, voice votes were taken over 200 times before the Bill was passed, according to a statement from the Rajya Sabha secretariat.

Deputy Chairman Harivansh's vocal cords were also tested while reading out the clauses, the number of amendments moved to each clause, the names of members moving the amendments, and putting the clauses and amendments to a vote.

 Notably, the bill aims to improve the operations of chartered accountants, cost accountants,' and company secretaries' institutes.