Parliament's Monsoon session from July 21; Oppn demands special session

Govt announces Monsoon session from July 21 to August 12; Opposition says early announcement aims to dodge special session demand over Operation Sindoor and CDS remarks

The Monsoon session of Parliament will be held from July 21 to August 12, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said on Wednesday.

 

The minister said the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, has recommended the dates, which will be sent to the President for convening the session.

 

The INDIA bloc Opposition parties have demanded a special session to discuss Operation Sindoor. In a post on X, Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said that normally the dates for a Parliament session are announced a few days in advance, but “never have the dates been declared 47 days before a session is due”.

 

Ramesh accused the government of announcing the Monsoon session dates much in advance “to run away from the demand being made repeatedly” by the Opposition for “an immediate special session to discuss the brutal Pahalgam attacks and the failure to bring the terrorists who did the killings themselves to justice, the impacts of Operation Sindoor and its blatant politicisation, the revelations of the CDS [Chief of Defence Staff] in Singapore, the hyphenation of India and Pakistan, the embedding of China in the Pakistan Air Force, the continuous claims of President Trump on mediation, and the numerous failures of our foreign policy and diplomatic engagements.”

 

However, Rijiju said, “Every session is a special session for us.” He added that under the rules, “all important matters” can be discussed during the Monsoon session. The business advisory committees of both Houses will decide the issues to be taken up.

 

The minister also said the government is committed to taking all political parties on board in moving an impeachment motion against Justice Yashwant Varma of the Allahabad High Court, adding that corruption in the judiciary cannot be approached through a “political prism”. He said the government wants the exercise to remove Justice Varma—embroiled in a case of alleged corruption and indicted by a Supreme Court-appointed committee—to be a “collaborative effort”. Rijiju said he would reach out to smaller parties, while all major parties had already been informed of the plan to bring a motion of impeachment.

 

According to the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, once a motion to remove a judge is admitted in either House, the Speaker or the Chairperson, as the case may be, must constitute a three-member committee to investigate the grounds on which the removal—popularly known as impeachment—is sought. The committee consists of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) or a Supreme Court judge, the chief justice of one of the 25 high courts, and a “distinguished jurist”.

 

Rijiju said the present case is “slightly different” as an in-house committee formed by then CJI Sanjiv Khanna has already submitted its report. “So what is to be done in this matter, we will take a call,” he said. The minister added that the process must be followed, but how to “integrate the inquiry already conducted” needs to be decided.

 

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien on Wednesday posted on X that the government is avoiding a special session, terming it “Parliamentophobia (noun)”, which he described as the acute condition of a government suffering from a morbid fear of facing Parliament. Speaking to reporters later, he said the government's announcement came a day after Opposition parties wrote a joint letter demanding a special session of Parliament. “TMC has studied past announcements, and usually, the session is announced around 20 days ahead of the date of commencement. This time, they announced it 45 days ahead,” O’Brien said.