LegislationThe Importance of Parliamentary CommitteesSanat Kanwar- September 19, 2019Last week, the Departmentally Related Standing Committees were reconstituted for the first year of the 17thLok Sabha.  In this context, we discuss the functioning and role of Standing Committees.The visible part of Parliament’s work takes place on the floor of the House.  Parliament meets for three sessions a year i.e., the Budget, Monsoon, and Winter Sessions.  This part of Parliament’s work is televised and closely watched.  However, Parliament has another forum through which a considerable amount of its work gets done.  These are known as Parliamentary Committees.  These Committees are smaller units of MPs from both Houses, across political parties and they function throughout the year.  These smaller groups of MPs study and deliberate on a range of subject matters, Bills, and budgets of all the ministries.During the recently concluded first Session of the 17thLok Sabha, Parliament sat for 37 days.  In the last 10 years, Parliament met for 67 days per year, on average.  This is a short of amount of time for MPs to be able to get into the depth of matters being discussed in the House.  Since Committees meet throughout the year, they help make up for this lack of time available on the floor of the House.Parliament deliberates on matters that are complex, and therefore needs technical expertise to understand such matters better.  Committees help with this by providing a forum where Members can engage with domain experts and government officials during the course of their study.  For example, the Committee on Health and Family Welfare studied theSurrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016whichprohibits commercial surrogacy, but allows altruistic surrogacy.  As MPs come from varying backgrounds, they may not have had the expertise to understand the details around surrogacy such as fertility issues, abortion, and regulation of surrogacy clinics, among others.  The Committee called upon a range of stakeholders including the National Commission for Women, doctors, and government officials to better their understanding of the issues, before finalising their report.Committees also provide a forum for building consensus across political parties.  The proceedings of the House during sessions are televised, and MPs are likely to stick to their party positions on most matters.  Committees have closed door meetings, which allows them to freely question and discuss issues and arrive at a consensus.After a Committee completes its study, it publishes its report which is laid in Parliament.  These recommendations are not binding, however, they hold a lot of weight.  For example, the Standing Committee on Health madeseveral recommendationsto the National Medical Commission Bill in 2017.  Many of these were incorporated in the recently passed2019 Bill, including removing the provision for allowing a bridge course for AYUSH practitioners.There are 24 such Departmentally Related Standing Committees (DRSCs), each of which oversees a set of Ministries.  DRSCs were set up first in 1993, to ensure Parliament could keep with the growing complexity of governance.  These are permanent Committees that are reconstituted every year.  They consist of 21 Members from Lok Sabha, and 10 Members from Rajya Sabha, and are headed by a Chairperson.  The DRSCs primarily look at three things: (i)Bills, (ii) budgets, and (iii) subject specific issues for examination.Other types of Standing Committees include Financial Committees which facilitate Parliament’s scrutiny over government expenditure.  Besides these, Parliament can also form ad hoc Committees for a specific purpose such as addressing administrative issues, examining a Bill, or examining an issue.To ensure that a Bill is scrutinised properly before it is passed, our law making procedure has a provision for Bills to be referred to a DRSC for detailed examination.  Any Bill introduced in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha can be referred to a DRSC by either the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.  Over the years, the Committees have immensely contributed to strengthen the laws passed by Parliament.  For example, theConsumer Protection Act, 2019,overhauling the 1986 law, was recently passed during the Budget Session.  An earlier version of the Bill had been examined by the Committee on Food and Consumer Affairs, whichsuggestedseveral amendments such as increasing penalties for misleading advertisements, making certain definitions clearer.   The government accepted most of these recommendations and incorporated them in the 2019 Act.Besides Bills, the DRSCs also examine the budget.  The detailed estimates of expenditure of all ministries, called Demand for Grants are sent for examination to the DRCSs.  They study the demands to examine the trends in allocations, spending by the ministries, utilisation levels, and the policy priorities of each ministry.  However, only a limited proportion of the budget is usually discussed on the floor of the House.  In the recently dissolved16thLok Sabha, 17% of the budget was discussed in the House.Committees also examine policy issues in their respective Ministries, and make suggestions to the government. The government has to report back on whether these recommendations have been accepted or not.  Based on this, the Committees then table an Action Taken Report, which shows status of the government’s action on each recommendation.While Committees have substantially impacted Parliament’s efficacy in discharging its roles, there is still scope for strengthening the Committee system.  In the 16thLok Sabha, DRSCs examined 41 Bills, 331 Demands for Grants, 197 issues, and published 503 Action Taken Reports.However, the rules do not require that all Bills be examined by a Committee.  This leads to some Bills being passed without the advantage of a Committee scrutinising its technical details.  Recently, there has been a declining trend in the percentage of Bills being referred to a Committee.  In the 15thLS, 71% of the Bills introduced were referred to Committees for examination, as compared to 27% in the 16thLok Sabha.With the DRSCs now constituted for the first year of the 17thLok Sabha, they will soon begin their meetings to select the subjects they are going to examine.  Some Committees already have Bills to examine that were referred to them during the 16thLok Sabha.  Some of these Bills are: (i)the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019, (ii)the Allied and Healthcare Professions Bill, 2018,and (iii)the Registration of Marriage of Non- Resident Indian Bill, 2019.So far in the 17thLok Sabha no Bill has been referred to a Committee yet.Read MoreParliamentFirst no-confidence motion of the 17th Lok Sabha discussed todayNiranjana Menon- August 8, 2023Discussion on the first no-confidence motion of the 17thLok Sabha began today.  No-confidence motions and confidence motions are trust votes, used to test or demonstrate the support of Lok Sabha for the government in power.  Article 75(3) of the Constitution states that the government is collectively responsible to Lok Sabha.  This means that the government must always enjoy the support of a majority of the members of Lok Sabha.  Trust votes are used to examine this support.  The government resigns if a majority of members support a no-confidence motion, or reject a confidence motion.So far, 28 no-confidence motions (including the one being discussed today) and 11 confidence motions have beendiscussed.  Over the years, the number of such motions has reduced.  The mid-1960s and mid-1970s saw more no-confidence motions, whereas the 1990s saw more confidence motions.Figure1: Trust votes in ParliamentNote: *Term shorter than 5 years; **6-year term.Source: Statistical Handbook 2021, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; PRS.The no-confidence motion being discussed today wasmovedon July 26, 2023.  A motion of no-confidence is moved with the support of at least 50 members.   The Speaker has the discretion to allot time for discussion of the motion.  TheRules of Procedurestate that the motion must be discussed within 10 days of being introduced.  This year, the no-confidence motion wasdiscussed13 calendar days after introduction.  Since the introduction of the no-confidence motion on July 26, 12 Bills have been introduced and 18 Bills have been passed by Lok Sabha.  In the past, on four occasions, the discussion on no-confidence motions began seven days after their introduction.  On these occasions, Bills and other important issues were debated before the discussion on the no-confidence motion began.Figure2: Members rise in support of the motion of no-confidence in Lok SabhaSource: Sansad TV, Lok Sabha, July 26, 2023; PRS.Figure3: Number of days from introduction to discussion on no-confidence motionsNote: Number of days implies calendar days.Source: Statistical Handbook 2021, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; PRS.On average, no-confidence motions (excluding the one being discussed today) have been discussed for 13 hours over three days.  Discussions have lasted longer than 20 hours on four instances, most recently in 2003.  Today’s no-confidence motion was allotted 12 hours discussion time by theBusiness Advisory Committee.Following the discussion, the motion is put to vote.  26 out of 27 no-confidence motions (excluding the one being discussed today) have been voted upon and rejected.  This means that no government has ever had to resign following a vote of no-confidence.   On one occasion, in 1979, the discussion on a no-confidence motion against the Morarji Desai government remained inconclusive.  He resigned before the motion was put to vote.  50% of all no-confidence motions (14 out of 28) were discussed between 1965 and 1975.  Of these, 12 were against governments headed by Indira Gandhi.Figure4: Duration of discussion on no-confidence motionsNote: This graph excludes the no confidence motion moved on July 26, 2023.Source: Statistical Handbook 2021, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; PRS.In comparison, confidence motions have a more varied history.  The first motion, brought in 1979 to demonstrate confidence in Charan Singh’s government, was not discussed at all.  The Prime Minister resigned before the discussion could take place.  Since then, 11 confidence motions have been discussed in Lok Sabha, with nine occurring in the 1990s.  During this period, several coalition governments were formed, and Prime Ministers sought to prove their majority throughconfidence motions.   These motions have been discussed, on average, for 12 hours over two days.Figure5: Duration of discussion of confidence motionsSource: Statistical Handbook 2021, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; PRS.Of the 11 confidence motions discussed in Lok Sabha, seven were accepted.  On three instances, governments had to resign as they could not prove that they had the support of the majority.  On one instance in 1996, the motion was not put to vote.  Following an eleven-hour discussion on this confidence motion, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced his intention to resign on the floor of the House.  He resigned 16 days into his term.Vajpayee became Prime Minister again in 1999, and faced another confidence motion.   This time, it was put to vote.   The motion was defeated by a margin of one vote.  This has been the closest result on a trust vote in the history of Lok Sabha.  The next closest result was when a motion of no-confidence against P V Narasimha Rao’s government was defeated by 14 votes in 1993.  In most cases, results have been in favour of the government by a large margin.«12345678910»
LegislationThe Importance of Parliamentary CommitteesSanat Kanwar- September 19, 2019