Srinagar- As political parties in Jammu & Kashmir are blitzing on private member bills submitted by them in the Legislative Assembly, the reality remains that such bills rarely see the light of day.A Private Member's Bill is a legislative proposal introduced by a member of the Legislative Assembly who is not a minister, and belongs to either the treasury benches or the opposition.

Records reveal that not a single private member has been passed in Parliament since past 55 years.

According to details, only 14 private member Bills have ever been passed by the Parliament and received Presidential assent, with the last one becoming law in 1970, reported news agency KNO.

The fate of private member also remains similar in J&K Assembly.

Since 1980, only three private member bills have been passed in the House. Two of them- Jammu & Kashmir Resettlement Act-1982 and Jammu & Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 2007- were moved by Abdul Rahim Rather, the incumbent speaker. The first was brought by him as MLA of NC in eighties and second as Leader of Opposition during PDP- Congress rule.

Former Lok Sabha General Secretary and expert on legislative matters, P.D.T. Achary said that the normal attitude of the government is that they don't allow such bills to pass.“In a few cases, they had allowed it to be passed-long, long ago. That was in the 1950s and 1960s. The passage of a bill depends on the attitude of the government, as it holds a majority in the House,” he said.

He said the normal attitude of the government is that they advise the members to withdraw the bills.“Normally, the government doesn't allow it. The point is that if an opposition member moves a bill and the government allows it to become a law, the member gets all the credit for that, not the government,” he said.

He said the government normally advises the members to withdraw the bill so that the government can bring a comprehensive bill.

“A private member's bill may not be very comprehensive; there may be very skeletal provisions in it. The private member doesn't have the technical expertise to draft a very comprehensive bill. It can be done only by the government. That advice is okay, and the government is right in giving it,” he said.