Parliamentary Scrutiny

The recent protests over Agricultural Reform laws by farmers has reignited the debate on ‘ineffectiveness of Parliamentary scrutiny over the executive’. Parliament in addition to its legislative role, it is also mandated to scrutinize the functioning of the Government.

The Parliament is equipped with various instruments for close and continuous scrutiny of the functioning of the government. They are as follows

• Discussion/debate
• Question Hour
• Parliamentary committees

Challenges to Parliamentary Scrutiny

• Deciding the duration and timing of the session of the Parliament is government’s prerogative
• For example winter session of the Parliament was truncated owing to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• no fixed calendar for the sessions
• Disruptions during Question Hour: 16th Lok Sabha, question hour functioned in Lok Sabha for 77% of scheduled time, while in Rajya Sabha functioned for 47%. indicates a lost opportunity to hold the government accountable. Also, over the years, decline in the sittings days of Parliament.
• Not referring bills to the Parliament committees: 60% of the Bills in the 14th Lok Sabha and 71% in the 15th Lok Sabha were vetted by the Parliamentary committees, this proportion came down to 27% in the 16th Lok Sabha.

Solution

• Insulate the functioning of Parliament from externalities: allow its functioning with reduced number of members of Parliament (MPs) or in a hybrid manner (Mix of virtual and Physical session).
• Parliament should have the power to regulate its procedure, sittings and timings
• Annual calendar for the sessions: United Kingdom and Australia
• Minimum number of sittings should be fixed: National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution Lok Sabha should have at least 120 sittings in a year, while Rajya Sabha should have 100 sittings.
• Shadow cabinet: To improve government accountability in Parliament, such as the UK, Canada, and Australia.
• Changing certain provisions of the Anti-defection law: to limit disqualifications in the cases where Legislatures vote against the directions of Party.
  
  

Parliament’s scrutiny of the government is crucial not only for upholding the accountability of the government to people of India but also for improving the quality of laws drafted. Strengthening the instruments of Parliamentary Scrutiny can go a long way in minimizing the potential implementation challenges.

State Legislative Assembly (SLA) scrutiny

SLA also has the power to scrutinize the functioning of the respective State Government with instruments like

• Discussion/debate
• Question Hour
• Assembly Committees
• Council of Minister is collectively responsible to the Vidhan Sabha

functioning of the SLAs have been sub optimal thereby affecting the scrutiny of State Government activities by the respective SLA.

• Low sittings: In the last 20 years, SLAs across the country, on average, met for less than 30 days in a year. But states like Kerala, Odisha, Karnataka are an exception.
• Question Hour: Total ‘starred questions’ asked vary between 11,200 in Rajasthan to 65 in West Bengal in 2017-19. In this time period only 21% of starred questions admitted in the 14th Rajasthan Assembly and 7% in 13th Maharashtra Assembly were answered on the floor of the House. For the 2020, Monsoon session West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra Assembles have done away with Question Hour.
• Opaque functioning: sittings of SLAs are not live streamed. While states such as Karnataka, Delhi and Rajasthan host the texts of legislative debates on their assembly websites, many others like West Bengal don’t.

Decline in Parliamentary Productivity

Recently, in the Monsoon session, Lok Sabha saw only 21 hours of functioning and 22% productivity of the House before being adjourned sine die.

Why the sitting hours of the Parliament are on decline?

• Reduced accountability: Due to parliamentary disruption, the ability of the Opposition to hold the government accountable for its functioning is dented. With Question Hour barely operational, ministers neither had to orally answer questions nor face pin-pointed follow-ups on the work done by their ministries.
• Ineffectiveness of Parliamentary committees: Only 12% of government’s legal proposals have been sent to committees for scrutiny in the current Lok Sabha. 27% in the 16th (2014-19), 71% in the 15th (2009-14) and 60% in the 14th (2004- 09) Lok Sabha.
• Bills are passed in haste: Lok Sabha, on an average, took less than 10 minutes to pass a law, and Rajya Sabha passed each law in less than half an hour.
• Important bills are pending: The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2019, etc. are pending in the Parliament for more than 2 years.
• Financial burden: Reportedly,  winter session cost over Rs 133 crore to the public exchequer.
• Triggers Ordinance Raj: government promulgates ordinance to bring legislative changes. The ordinance-making power of the executive contradicts the fundamental concept of separation of powers between the executive and the legislature.