NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha Tuesday passed Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Bill amid din, with MoS for home Nityanand Rai saying the legislation intends to ensure every child born is duly registered and also all deaths are registered “so that ghosts don’t keep casting votes for parties that believe in appeasement”.The bill was passed without any discussion and voice vote as an unrelenting opposition continued to disrupt proceedings over NEET-UG paper leak and Ram temple donation theft issues and demanding home minister Amit Shah’s presence in the House.Responding to the discussion on the bill, Rai, in apparent reference to illegal immigrants, said, “The country now wants to get rid of ghosts. There are govts in some states that look for an opportunity and welcome those (who were not born in India) and register their births who are not eligible to be registered here. Now, we will not allow this to happen.”The bill that was earlier passed by Lok Sabha seeks to tighten regulations for delayed registration of births and deaths and makes it mandatory to get approval from a judicial magistrate (first class) for cases reported more than two years after the event.Similar scenes also prevailed in LS, with it passing Appropriation Bill without discussion – the fifth legislation to be approved by voice vote in lower House in Parliament’s monsoon session.Earlier, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced Taxation and Other Laws Amendment Bill for passage, but it was left for another day as the House was adjourned for the day after passage of Appropriation Bill, which seeks to provide authorisation of appropriation of moneys out of Consolidated Fund of India to meet amounts spent on certain services during the financial year ended on March 31, 2023, in excess of the amounts granted.
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Monsoon session is heading for a virtual washout as both Houses have been repeatedly adjourned since the session began except for a discussion on the bill making punishment in paper leak cases more stringent. RS witnessed an uproar as governing party and opposition had an angry exchange of words over the donation theft issue.When LoP Malikarjun Kharge asked why govt agencies like ED, CBI and I-T were not probing the theft ‘by members of Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra’, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju alleged that Congress and SP had always “abused Lord Ram” and “opposed Ram Temple construction.”
