A
on
*This Paper is reproduced from Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap’s book
“Reviewing the Constitution ?”
(New Delhi, 2000 Edition) and also based on his History of the
Parliament in India, Vol.6, New Delhi, 2000, pp. 541-559. The views expressed are personal to the
author.
(i)
WORKING OF PARLIAMENT AND NEED
FOR REFORMS
Page
No.
1. Introduction 1217
2. Nodal Standing Committee on Economy 1218
3. Building a better image of Parliament 1218
4. Panchayats and Parliament 1219
5. Improving the quality of members 1219
6. Reducing the expenditure 1220
7. Improving information supply 1221
8. Planning Legislation and improving its
Quality 1221
9. Setting up a Constitution Committee 1222
10. Departmental Committees and Improving
Accountability 1222
11. Parliamentary Control Over Borrowing 1224
12. Discussing Committee Reports on the
Floor of the House 1224
13. Codifying Parliamentary Privileges 1224
14. Reforming the functions of Parliamentary
Parties 1224
15. Other Procedural Reforms 1225
16. Conclusion 1227
1 Introduction: That
representative democracy and parliamentary institutions have endured in India
for five decades is a great tribute to their strength and resilience. There has, however been in recent years
quite some thinking and debate about decline of Parliament, devaluation of parliamentary
authority, falling standards of debate, deterioration in the conduct and
quality of Members, poor levels of participation and the like. A certain cynicism towards parliamentary
institutions and an erosion in the respect for normal parliamentary processes
and the parliamentarians present a disturbing scenario. Very little effort, seems to have been made
to examine and analyse what really plagues Parliament or to find out the
reasons for the erosion of the traditional authority, high esteem and pristine
glory of the institution of Parliament.
1.1 During the last nearly 50 years, the structure and functions of Parliament had developed under the shadow of the Fabian slogans of democratic socialism, economic democracy and distributive justice. The information explosion, the technological revolution, the growing magnitude and complexities of modern administration and the concept of Welfare State cast upon Parliament vastly extended responsibilities of social engineering through legislation and of managing the lives of citizen from the bedrooms to the cremation or burial grounds. Inadequacy of time, information and expertise with Parliament resulted in poor quality legislation and unsatisfactory parliamentary surveillance over administration. As B.K. Nehru once said, during the entire period of nearly 200 years of their rule in India, the British passed only some 400 laws while in the first 40 years, Parliament had passed nearly 4000. The big difference was that the 400 laws were obeyed or had to be obeyed while the 4000 pieces of legislation were not obeyed. Those to whom many of these laws relate did not even know or understand them.
1.2 Little effort has been made to develop the essential
prerequisites for the success of parliamentary polity - discipline, character,
high sense of public morality, ideologically oriented two party system and
willingness to here and accommodate minority views.
1.3 In a situation where the government
lacked comfortable majority of its own and the opposition was too weak to
emerge as an alternative, the options were very limited and the Parliament was
bound to remain less effective. This is
what happened during the 1989-1999 decade.
Members irrespective of their party affiliations had themselves become a
new caste and parts of the establishment and co-sharers in the spoils. Politics and Membership of Parliament had
emerged as a whole-time, highly lucrative, hereditary profession. Following the changed composition of the
successive House, there was faster devaluation of all the old values and
increase in disorders and pandemonia on the floor during the so-called
"Zero Hour" and at other times.
There was general apathy among Members, Ministers and public at large towards
the work of Parliament. Absenteeism
among Members had assumed alarming proportions and defections for money and
office were a common phenomenon.
1.4 Several of the archaic practices and time-consuming procedures most unsuitable for present-day needs continued. Legitimacy of government and of representative institutions under the system were inextricably linked to free and fair elections and to the system being able to bring to power persons who truly represented the people's will and had the necessary abilities to govern. Recent efforts notwithstanding, due to the role of mafia gangs, muscle power and money power, free and fair elections continued to be difficult in some parts of the country thereby affecting the representative credentials of our elected representatives. Therefore, it would be necessary to reform the electoral system and the political party system before parliamentary reforms could be thought of.
1.5 Reforms and urgent remedial action seem imperative for making
parliamentary institutions and processes effective and potent instruments of
ensuring sustainable economic growth so vital for the success of the new
economic policy also. Role expectation
of Parliament is linked with the role perception of the State. NEP should lead to cutting back on
Government involvement and drastic reduction in the role of the State in
national economy. This should naturally
get reflected in the reduced role for Parliament and its Committees. Also their processes, control mechanisms,
debating and decision making procedures would have to be revamped and made
faster. Floor management techniques
would have to be professionalized at the level of whips, parliamentary
officials and the Presiding Officers.
1.6 For Parliament, it is of the utmost importance constantly to
review and refurbish its structural-functional requirements and from time to
time to consider renewing and reforming the entire gamut of its operational
procedures to guard against putrefaction and decay. The case for reforming Parliament is unexceptionable and, in a
sense, has always been so. The real
question is of how much and what to change to strengthen and improve the
system. We have to be clear about the
precise need, the direction and the extent of the reforms that would be
desirable at present. It is obvious
that mere tinkering first-aid repairs and trifling cosmetic adjustments would
not anymore be enough. What is needed is a full-scale review. We have to be prepared for fundamental
institutional - structural, functional, procedural and organisational -
changes. The overriding guiding norm
and purpose of all parliamentary reforms should be to make both Government and
Parliament more relevant to meet the challenges of the times and the changing
national needs in the context of the objective of faster economic growth.
1.7 Both the Parliament and the Government should be collectively
concerned with concurrent and contemporaneous monitoring and evaluation of the
implementation of economic reforms, scrutiny of the overall performance of the
economy, targets, achievements, shortfalls etc. Some serious thinking is called for in the matter of reforming
the budget procedure in Parliament and bringing it closer to the needs and
constraints of the new situation. The
number of occasions on which voting by divisions may be needed during a budget
session is very large. Also, the defeat
of any demand for grant is deemed to be tantamount to expression of lack of
confidence in the Government. There is every possibility of a division being
asked for more often only to embarrass the Government. It would be unrealistic to expect all the
Members to be present all the time through the session. It would, therefore, be wise to reduce to
the barest minimum the number of days on which voting by division is considered
imminent. Also, the time may be fixed
by agreement and announced in advance with appropriate whips issued and
attendance ensured otherwise.
2. Nodal Standing Committee on Economy : It may be
advisable to have a nodal Standing Committee on national economy with specific
subject-oriented study groups aided by experts and concerned with economic
policy formulation and implementation. The study groups would make internal
study reports to the main Committee based on operational research in
performance evaluation against physical targets. The Committee would in its turn make annual reports to
Parliament. These reports would prove
valuable to various Ministries and Departments of the Government. Also, they would serve the purpose of
constant vigilance and constructive appraisal directed to preventing erosion of
credibility, plugging loopholes and strengthening the system as a whole. The Committee recommendations would help to
evolve and adopt better means of monitoring, analysing and evaluating performance
in implementing policies and prescribing
correctives to ensure the best use of available resources. The reports would provide valuable feedback
to Parliament and should be discussed by the two Houses each year.
3. Building a better image
of Parliament : Parliament is the
communication link between the people and the government. Bad public relations job has resulted in a
poor image of Parliament and of its members. People talk of happenings in
Parliament and of the Members of Parliament as things quite remote and
different from themselves. There is
little consciousness of Parliament being their own and Members being from among
themselves. It is necessary to
establish a new rapport between the people and the Parliament. The two must be
brought closer to each other.
Parliament belongs to the people and not the M.Ps. The latter themselves are responsible to
Parliament and to the people outside.
It is ordinary people who have to be enabled to feel that they are participants
in the decision-making and legislative processes and that through Parliament
their voice can reach the Government and that it counts. Parliament must have
access to public opinion and public must have access to Parliament. If corruption is suspected inside the
portals of legislatures, the press and the public must be free to question it
and expose it without being threatened under the law of parliamentary
privileges. In its own long-term interest, Parliament as an institution cannot
afford to place itself beyond all scrutiny by anyone. There is every need for a parliamentary Ombudsman. If stories
that are current about payments demanded, offered or paid for favours like gas
connections, telephone connections, questions etc. or of subletting of official
residences, or of misuse of coupons and passes these need to be thoroughly
investigated and, if untrue, publicly contradicted.
3.1 Deliberate and concerted efforts are needed also at the
professional level to rebuild Parliament's image as the supreme institution of
the people. The people should know what
their representatives are doing for them.
Better press and public relations job and image-building for Parliament
are legitimate and necessary and there should be no hesitation to use the
latest tools and techniques for the purpose. The mass media - the radio,
television, newspapers, films etc. - should all be suitably harnessed to the
service of Parliament. These,
particularly the print and electronic media can play a vital role in building a
healthy image of Parliament.
3.2 The recent innovations of televising the Question Hour and
other important debates would go a long way to bring Parliament to the
door-steps of the people. Even if the
level of debate has not improved much, parliamentary politics has become more
alive. Conscious of the fact of the
people watching them, members find it difficult to be absent during the
Question Hour. Also, they are better
dressed and more careful about their behavior before the camera. But much remains to be done. To give a
faithful and complete picture of what actually happens in the Houses of
Parliament, it is necessary to telecast nationally other important debates
live. The edited version becomes stale,
ceases to be newsworthy and remains suspect for having omitted the most
'interesting' parts of the proceedings.
Care also has to be taken to see that televising of proceedings does not
turn some members into demagogues and mountebanks playing more and more to the
gallery and to the vast number of viewers and listeners all over the country.
3.3 It is necessary that the press and public relations in
Parliament are suitably reoriented and developed as a highly specialized and
dynamic service charged with the responsibility inter alia of educating public opinion in regard to Parliament and
its activities through :
(i)
publication and distribution of handy monographs, folders
and handouts;
(ii)
attending to enquiries from the public, publicising the
telephone numbers and addresses from which information about Parliament and its
activities may be sought and providing some public computer terminals and an
internet website from which any citizen can hope to get any information he may
need regarding the Parliament and its activities.
(iii)
Managing publication of write-ups in newspapers and
periodicals;
(iv)
arranging interviews, talks and discussions on Radio and
T.V.;
(v)
using audio-visual means like audio and video cassettes to
publicize the work of Parliament;
(vi)
issuing Press Notes and supplying backgrounders; and
(vii)
having regular briefing sessions for the Press, as is done
in some countries.
4. Panchayats and Parliament: The role of M.P.
must undergo change as a result of Panchayati Raj. The functions of Parliament and role expectation from Parliament
should be transformed. Meticulous
caution has to be taken to avoid any role conflicts between the Panchayats and
Members of Parliament. Ideally, Members
of Parliament are Members for the whole of India and should concern themselves
basically with the national issues leaving the local problems to the care of
Panchayats and Nagar Palikas. Schemes
like those placing two crores of rupees each year at the discretion of each
Member of Parliament to be spent on local projects are bound to create role
conflicts and tensions.
5. Improving the quality of Members: Quality
of Members is the most important variable in the working of any Parliament
inasmuch as a Parliament would be what its Members make of it. It is the primary duty of every Member
irrespective of his party affiliations to maintain and project a good image of
Parliament by his conduct both inside and outside the Houses of
Parliament. Corporate image of
Parliament is bound to remain poor unless the quality and conduct of individual
Members improve and every Member is imbued with a sense of purpose and
responsibility. Also, every backbencher
should be enabled to feel relevant and that he matters in what goes on in
Parliament. Members of important
parliamentary committees need to lay down a strict code of conduct for
themselves, never to ask the senior Government officers appearing before the
Committee for personal favours, avoid Committee tours unless really necessary
and never accept any gifts, dinners, free transport, five star hospitality and
the like while on tours.
5.1 Politics has become a highly professionalised business and should be understood as such. Irrespective of ones talents and professional background, every new member when he first enters a legislature feels completely lost in the dense forest of the mass of conventions, traditions, rules, regulations and formalities of the highly sophisticated parliamentary procedures, processes and practices. Institutionalized arrangements are, therefore necessary to provide the much needed professional training and orientation to every newly elected Member irrespective of his ideological or party affiliations. The curriculum should include, among other things, adequate knowledge of the political system, the Constitution, the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business, the practices and precedents, mechanisms and modalities of the working of the Houses and the Parliamentary Committees, the do's and don'ts for Members, the rules of parliamentary etiquette and the like. The emphasis should be on the practical know-how, the technicalities and the operational realities and the concrete situations and not the rule book.
5.2 Inadequacy of education and training in the sophisticated
operational mechanics of parliamentary polity and the working procedures of
modern parliamentary institutions has adversely affected the performance of
both the legislators and the bureaucracy.
The orientation seminars for new members that are now arranged have
become too routinized, insipid and more in the nature of a ritual both for the
participants and the organizers.
6. Reducing the expenditure: Financial cost of parliamentary democracy have been
skyrocketing. During the last five
decades they have gone up by over 100 times.
Also, the figures of costs e.g. on Parliament seem fudged inasmuch as much
of the expenditure gets reflected under other heads.
6.1 A matter often raised is that of the salaries, allowances,
amenities, facilities etc. extended to Members. While for some, entering Parliament involves financial sacrifice,
for many others it provides much sought for rewards and benefits. There are two extreme views on whether
Members are heavily pampered and overpaid or they misunderstood and grossly
underpaid. Much can be said on either
side. According to one guess, if every
member is paid Rs.100,000 to 200,000 per month in cash and all perks and direct
and indirect financial benefits from the State are withdrawn, the public
exchequer would be a gainer. This would
imply that at present, a member on an average gets in cash or in kind not less
than Rs. One lakh (One hundred thousand) per month. If the State Legislators are included, the total numbers comes to
above 4000. Besides, we have Ministers,
Chairmen of Boards, Public Undertakings etc. and politicians occupying
innumerable offices with Minister’s status at the State and Union levels, each
one costing ten to fifty times the cost of an M.P. All this put together makes the cost of maintaining our huge army
of whole-time professional politicians very heavy and hardly commensurate with
the returns to society. While stressing
the need for cutting down the administrative expenditure under SAP, we have to
think of cutting down the staging cost of democracy as well. There is need to drastically slash
parliamentary spending under various heads.
Even if the resultant economy in the context of the overall national
budget may not seem very large, the psychological impact is bound to be
massive. Strictest self control is
necessary also because parliamentary budget, by convention, is not questioned
or debated.
6.2 A strict limit needs to be placed on the number of Ministers
and equivalent posts both at the Union level and in the States. In countries like U.K., the number and names
of departments are fixed. Ministers may
change but not the departments. In
India, on the other hand, departments are created, merged or split from time to
time to suit the whims of the Prime Minister or the changes in the Ministers in
charge. This causes confusion,
instability, uncertainty and wasteful expenditure.
7. Improving information supply: Information is power.
For any effective surveillance over administration, Parliament needs
information. Members need
information. They have to be fed with
latest information and kept uptodate in regard to developments in all areas of
parliamentary concern and more particularly in matters coming up before their
House or Committees. Instead of
depending almost entirely on published documents – which are almost always
outdated and - other official sources, Parliament must build its own
independent national information reservoir with a network of feeding and
retrieval points. In this connection,
computerization of storage and retrieval of information in Parliament was well
conceived. But much depends on the data
files that are built and what is actually fed into the computer or the
internet. Unfortunately, it seems there
has been no qualitative change in information gathering processes. Members need first hand information and
fresh inputs on various subjects of interest to Parliament and particularly in
regard to the activities of the Ministries and Departments of the Government so
as to facilitate monitoring and evaluating progress, performance and efficiency
and lead to better surveillance of administration as a whole. Even if no other parliamentary reform was brought
about, the single step of developing an infrastructure of information support
system in Parliament would have been profound effect on revitalizing and
transforming the institution of Parliament.
7.1 Some of the modern tools and techniques
that may be used to keep our Members better informed may be:-
(b) briefing
sessions by experts on topics of current parliamentary concern;
(b) provision of audio-visual aids, setting up of separate well-equipped audio-visual rooms, loaning of cassettes of Seminars, Conferences, Briefing Sessions and the like;
(c) problem and practice oriented quickies (quick studies) – current awareness series, background notes, issue briefs, information bulletins, fact sheets, digests, etc. on parliamentary, procedural and other immediate or anticipated problems of concern; and
(d) Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) on selected subjects to members in their respective interest areas.
7.2 An essential prerequisite for any such
assistance being available in satisfactory measure would be the presence of
highly qualified and competent staff in the Library, Research and Reference
Services of the Secretariats of Parliament.
8. Planning Legislation and improving its
Quality: Our legislation has often been criticized for hasty drafting and
for its being rushed through Parliament in an ad hoc and haphazard manner.
There is need for a dynamic – not mechanical – approach to legislative
engineering and systematic programming of laws which may be proposed for
enactment over a period of time. This
can be done by:
(i)
streamlining the functions of the Parliamentary and Legal
Affairs Committee of the Cabinet;
(ii)
making greater use of the Law Commission;
(iii)
setting up a new Legislation Committee of Parliament to
oversee and coordinate legislative planning; and
(iv)
referring all Bills to the newly set-up Departmental
Standing Committees for consideration and scrutiny, consulting concerned
interest groups and finalization of the second reading stage in the relaxed
atmosphere of Committees aided by experts thereby reducing the burden of the House
without impinging on any of its rights and improving the quality of drafting
and content of legislation.
9. Setting up a Constitution Committee: While executive
power of the Union is co-extensive with its legislative power, the constituent
power under the Constitution belongs exclusively to Parliament. The responsibility of Parliament, therefore,
become much greater in the case of Constitution (Amendment) Bills. As such, instead of the Constitution
Amendments being presented to Parliament like ordinary pieces of legislation in
the form of Bills for introduction sometimes at very short notice, it would be
desirable if Parliament is associated right from the initial stages of
formulation of proposals for constitutional reform, i.e., the actual drafting
of a Constitution Amendment Bill may be taken up only after the principles
involved have been thrashed out in a parliamentary forum and subjected to
appropriate a priori scrutiny by the
constituent power. The proposed
involvement of Parliament and a priori
scrutiny can be achieved through the device of a Constitution Committee of
Parliament which may be constituted by resolution or otherwise as a standing
joint Committee of the two Houses. The
members of the Committee may be elected by the respective Houses. Rather than delay, this might expedite the
process of constitutional reforms besides bestowing greater authority,
legitimacy and wider acceptability to the reform proposals. As an alternative, after a Constitution
Amendment Bill has been formulated but before it has been introduced, it may be
subjected to a priori scrutiny of the
‘Constitution Committee’. If this is
done, even the Government would be saved many an embarrassment.
9.1 Also, where an enactment is placed beyond the power of
judicial review by being included under the Ninth Schedule, it may be desirable
for Parliament itself to provide an alternative forum and remedy by way of
review, etc. to any aggrieved citizen.
The proposed Constitution Committee may perform this function as well. In view of the fact that several laws are
struck down by courts as being ultra
vires the Constitution, it would be desirable to subject all legislation to
prior scrutiny from the point of view of constitutional validity. Scrutiny by a Parliamentary Committee should
help in ensuring that legislation purporting to be in furtherance of the
Directive Principles does, in fact, have a reasonable nexus with the objectives
in view and does not curtail the Fundamental Rights of the citizens beyond a
measure that can be considered to be reasonable and strictly necessary.
10. Departmental Committees and Improving
Accountability: The setting up of the 17 subject based Standing Committees has
been the most historic development in recent years in the area of parliamentary
reforms. Seventeen, however, is perhaps
too many. Three such Committees were
set up in 1989 on an experimental basis.
Subsequently, the Rules Committee recommended ten Committees to cover
all the Ministries and Departments.
But, perhaps hard bargaining and needs for compromise and accommodation
of various interests and considerations raised the number to seventeen. Although it may not be easy to reduce the
number now, it is strongly felt that 7 to 10 such Committees would be enough
and in fact might prove more effective than the 17. Also, it is important from the angle of reducing the overall
costs and need for economy.
10.1 Parliamentary oversight of administration is not an end in
itself. It is never intended to
adversely affect administrative initiative, effectiveness and discretion. It is meant to galvanize, not supplant
action. The purpose of accountability
mechanisms is to strengthen efficient functioning of administration and not
weaken it. It is reasonably well
established that parliamentary scrutiny over public finance is at present
inadequate and patchy and there is need for simplifying presentation of the
budget and strengthening executive control and parliamentary scrutiny of
expenditure.
10.2 If the Subject/Ministry based Standing Committees have to have
real meaning and fulfill the purposes for which they were conceived and not to
become merely part of a spoils system and distribution of perks and benefits,
they should embrace the entire spectrum of administration for an in-depth and
continuous study to provide:
(i)
close pre-budget scrutiny of the estimates and complex
expenditure plans (Demands for Grants) before they are voted on the floor of
the House;
(ii)
concurrent and contemporaneous examination of the activities
of Government departments and matters of national concern in cool, non-partisan
atmosphere;
(iii)
monitoring and evaluation of performance, relating to
financial input to the policy objectives and actual results to measure
effectiveness, and detailed examination of supplementary estimates;
(iv)
feed-back of valuable insight and information to Parliament
and to the Government to reappraise economic proposals;
(v)
closer and more competent scrutiny of all legislative
proposals – all Bills introduced in the House may automatically stand referred
to the appropriate Committee for detailed consideration and discussion;
(vi)
review of the implementation of laws passed by Parliament in
respective subject areas;
(vii)
leadership recruitment and training ground for higher
responsibilities in Government, participation by backbenchers and building a
second line of leadership; and
(viii)
development of specialization and expertise among members.
10.3 The Committees could, in fact, strengthen
the Government by providing valuable insights into its own working, provide to
Parliament sharper and more effective surveillance tools and restore the
balance between Parliament’s legislative and deliberative functions and its
role as a representational body, and, above all, save valuable parliamentary
time to the advantage both of Parliament and the Government. Working away from the glare of publicity, in
a truly corporate sense, free from the normal partisan spirit that often
characterizes the debates in the House, the new parliamentary committees could
play an important, substantial and useful role. These Committees could provide a potent mechanism for a
meaningful multilateral dialogue between the Government and the Members of
Parliament enabling a proper appreciation of each other’s views, reasonable
accommodation of varying viewpoints and harmonization of conflicting
interests. In the ultimate analysis,
such parliamentary committees alone can ensure that we are making the best use
of parliamentary system of Government.
10.4 Since the functions of every Ministry and Department are
covered by the Departmental Standing Committees and also in view of the
proposed new Constitution Committee, Legislation Committee and the Committee on
National Economy, it does not seem at all necessary to continue the existing
Committees on Estimates, Public Accounts, Public Undertakings and Subordinate
Legislation. Their functions should
also be most appropriately handled by the Departmental Standing
Committees. This would rationalize the
new Parliamentary Committee structure, streamline the functions of each
individual committee, prevent overlapping and duplication of roles and above
all lead to greater economy of expenditure under the head of Parliament and
various Ministries of the Government.
10.5 The development of an integrated system of committees would
reduce the pressures on floor time – cost of floor time was estimated several
years ago as being over Rs. 900 per second (later, Sangma put it only Rs. 7000
per minute) – and strengthen parliamentary surveillance over administration and
contribute to economy, speed, efficiency and smooth working both for Parliament
and the Government. Scrutiny of the
Committees should be based on developed information collection, retrieval and
management techniques and research tools and methods of enquiry and supported
by independent study and assimilation of information and analysis of data. The approach of committees would have to be
one of internal achievement audit or
modern management efficiency study
strengthening the system as a whole.
The reports that have recently come out from the 17 Committees
unfortunately do not bear much evidence of such an approach or effort.
10.6 The role of the Committee staff is
vital. It should constantly and
concurrently monitor the working of the concerned Ministries. The professional staff member should have
the necessary competence in his Committee’s subject area. He has to scientifically feed the committee
with all the relevant information and data.
To avoid diffusion of responsibility, there should be just one competent
professional staff with one secretarial support in each Committee.
10.7 Success of the committees and
strengthening of accountability mechanisms through them would, however depend
on (I) quality of members, (ii) willingness of government to provide timely,
factual and full information and (iii) the orientation, independence,
objectivity and research expertise of the Committee staff.
10.8 If, however, the Joint Parliamentary
Committees on Bofors and on the multicrore Bank/Securities scam were any
indication, the portents for the system were not very encouraging.
11. Parliamentary Control Over Borrowing: While the budgetary demands for
grants of various ministries may now be examined by the concerned standing
committees, still there is no provision for a parliamentary scrutiny or control
of public borrowing. Unlike U.K., in
India, the Constitution and the laws place no limits on the borrowing powers of
the Executive. Parliamentary approval
for any amount of internal or external borrowings as such is not required
except that it is a part of the budget.
This is a significant lacuna and must be plugged. For, public borrowing is a charge on the
future generations and must be duly controlled. Beyond certain prescribed limits, borrowing proposals should also
be subjected to scrutiny by the proposed parliamentary committee on National
Economy or the Standing Committee for the Ministry of Finance.
12. Discussing
Committee Reports on the Floor of the House:
Under the present practice regarding not discussing on the floor of the
House reports of some of the important Committees like Financial Committees,
some very useful recommendations remain unappreciated and infructuous. It is time for modifying the practice. It would be most desirable to discuss as a
regular feature all important reports of Parliamentary Committees particularly
in cases of disagreement between the Committee and the Government.
13. Codifying
Parliamentary Privileges: In a democratic
society, any privileges for a section or class of the people are anachronistic,
any undefined privileges like the privileges of Parliament are even more
so. It is, therefore of the utmost
importance that the weapon of parliamentary privileges is used with great
circumspection. As a great institution,
Parliament should be able to take in its stride, a great deal of the criticism and adverse comments against
it. Privileges of Parliament are
intended to be privileges enjoyed by Parliament on behalf of the people, to
enable members to function freely and fearlessly, in the interest of the
people.
13.1 These privileges should not be allowed to
be used in such a manner as to nullify themselves and become rights against the
people. The specific parliamentary
privileges which may be deemed to be in conformity with contemporary thinking
and absolutely necessary for the free and independent functioning of the
institution of Parliament should be clearly defined, delimited and
simplified. There is a strong case for
codifying privileges and ending the necessity of every time referring to the
1950 position in the House of Commons in U.K.
13.2 Time is now ripe for removing the existing
uncertainty and anxiety of the press and the people through early
codification. A joint Committee of the
two Houses may be set up to lay down the privileges in precise terms and to
recommend appropriate piecemeal or comprehensive legislation.
14. Reforming the functions of Parliamentary
Parties: It is the duty of
Parties in Parliament to train and guide their members and to advise and inform them on political, economic,
social and procedural problems coming up before Parliament from time to
time. This should be done by the Party
Secretariat providing party position papers, speech notes and write-ups and
arranging issue discussion or briefing sessions and the like.
14.1 Inside Parliament,
recognition may be given to the Government and to the official
opposition only. No recognition may be
given separately to other parties and groups.
Inside the Houses of Parliament, there would thus be only two recognized
bodies: one, the majority party or coalition of parties forming the Government
and two, the Official Opposition comprising the parties, groups and persons in
Opposition. The Rules of Procedure,
Directions from the chair and the anti-defection law (10th Schedule
to the Constitution) may be amended accordingly.
14.2 Further, party whips may be issued on very
vital matters of policy only. It would
be desirable to allow free vote on most of the issues and discussions on the
floor of either House thereby giving weightage to the real views of the
majority of members on specific issues of national concern and possibly leading
to the emergence and consolidation of national will and consensus on most
matters. Only defeat on a No-Confidence
Motion proper may be deemed to be defeat of the Government calling for
resignation of the Council of Ministers.
This might incidentally reduce the incidence of unprincipled defections
and instill a new sense of responsibility, relevance and importance in each
member irrespective of ruling party or opposition affiliation.
15. Other Procedural Reforms: Each House of Parliament is complete master
of its procedure. The Rules of
Procedure and Conduct of Business are intended to be merely for guidance, for
regulating the business of the House and for facilitating the orderly
expression of members’ views.
Precedents and conventions may not be allowed to become shackles to
imprison and destroy the institution.
Procedures must keep pace with the changing needs of the national
economy, composition of Membership and the prevailing mood of the Members. On the other hand, it has to be appreciated
that the use of various procedural devices to engage the attention of the House
calls for a certain restraint.
Sometimes, completely unrestricted and unlimited right of discussion can
itself become a weapon of tyranny. It
is in this context that the adequacy of the existing parliamentary procedures
in the context of the need to help the new economic reforms and liberalisation
policies needs to be examined.
15.1 (i) Reorganising Parliamentary Time Table: Houses of Parliament are
proverbially hard pressed for time and find difficulties in completing their
business despite long sessions and late hours.
While Parliament must perform its oversight role and its weapons of open
debate, scrutiny and accountability should not be blunted in any way, it has
also to be seen that time consuming procedures do not hamper the smooth
transaction of public business. As it
is, much of the valuable time of the House is taken up by a variety of local
and other unimportant issues. The House
as a whole can ill-afford the time for lengthy discussions on such issues which
drag on for day after day. It may, therefore, be in the fitness of things to
suitably amend the Rules of Procedure in order to more firmly prevent Members
raising in the House matters of local or limited interest with which the Houses
as a whole is not vitally concerned.
These may be raised in the committees.
Similarly, the many controversial issues which are now usually raised
during question time or soon thereafter in what has now come to be known as the
‘Zero Hour’ could better be dealt with in the Committees. Incidentally, in the Committees they could be
discussed in greater detail. It can
hurt only those who may be anxious to hog newspaper headlines by creating
scenes during the ‘Zero Hour’. The
floor time ought to be better utilised for major policy matters, matters of
vital national interest and important legislative and financial business. There is an urgent need for a reorganisation
of the parliamentary timetable and rationalisation of the methods and
procedures of the House. This is of the
utmost importance inasmuch as many a problem of reforming the parliamentary
system, in one way or the other, concern the question of the proper use of the
very limited parliamentary time that is available. As John Freeman once said, in every parliamentary democracy, “the
clock and the calendar are the most dreaded enemies of ministers and
back-benchers alike”.
15.2 Several items of business like the
Questions, Adjournment Motions, Calling Attention Notices, Motions of
No-Confidence, etc. initiated by Private Members are at present taken up during
the time allocated for Government business and not in the time already reserved
for Private Members’ business on Fridays.
A better alternative would be to allocate time on a weekly basis between
the Government and the Private Members and to leave the priorities to be decided
within each.
15.3 (i) While parliamentary sessions may continue to be held thrice
in a year as at present and for the same duration, the parliamentary business
can itself be shared between the House on the one hand and the Committees on
the other. The time during the sessions
could be divided in such a way that the Committees have also enough time to
meet and complete their task. The
forenoons could be reserved for the sitting of the Houses and the afternoons
for Committee meetings or there could be a three day week for Parliament, with
the Houses sitting on, say, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for 7 hours
daily from 11 to 6 without lunch break.
The Committees could sit on Mondays and Fridays, if necessary, on
Saturdays as well. In the 21-hour week,
11 hours of floor-time could be set apart for government business i.e.
legislation and other matters initiated by the Government, and the remaining 10
hours of floor-time could be made available to Private Members for Questions,
Calling Attention Notices, Private Members Bills and Resolutions,
No-Day-Yet-Named Motions, Privilege Issues and other non-official business.
15.4 (ii) Freedom of Expression: It is
perhaps the most fundamental parliamentary right of a Member of
Parliament. Every member is entitled to
freely and fearlessly express himself on the floor of the House inter alia on burning issues of the day
and matters of urgent public importance.
If a member fails to do so under one of the available procedural
devices, he often takes recourse to what has come to be known as the “Zero
Hour”. While unparliamentary or
objectionable expressions may be expunged from the proceedings of the two
Houses of Parliament by their respective Presiding officers under the existing
rules, ‘shutting off’ or ‘blinding’ the proceedings of any House under the
presiding Officer’s direction that ‘nothing of what is said without his
permission would go on record’ may be of questionable desirability inasmuch as
in that case the reports of the Proceedings cannot really be regarded any more
as a faithful record of all that happened.
This applies equally well to the expurgated and edited version of the
selected proceedings that may be telecast.
In any case, when the Question Hour or any other part of the proceedings
is telecast live, how can the Presiding Officers’ expunction orders
operate? Also, those sitting in the
Public, Press and other Galleries do hear and know in full, what is said on the
floor of the House. The entire matter
may need to be examined in depth and reconsidered.
15.5 (iii) The Petitions Committee:
It needs to be strengthened and put to greater use. It has tremendous potential as a substitute
or supplementary to the Ombudsman institution.
It may be advisable to pay greater attention to publicising the
committee’s existence and the scope of its functions.
15.6 (iv) The Question Hour: Each of
the two Houses of Parliament devote an hour each day to questions. Referred to
as the showpiece of parliamentary democracy, the Question Hour nevertheless reveals
an inadequate appreciation among members of its real purpose and scope and of
their own responsibility in the matter.
Thus, instead of being an hour during which questions are asked to
elicit information from the government, it has, in practice become a discussion
hour. While 20 questions are listed for
oral answers each day, usually not more than 4-5 are covered. Lengthy arguments
and orations are made in the name of supplementaries with the actual questions
being preceded by introductions and preambles.
Often replies by Ministers also tend to be evasive or an exercise in the
art of giving technically correct answers without ‘giving away’ any
information.
15.7 Notices of many questions may be without
any pubic purpose or general or national interest being involved in getting
replies thereto. Scrutiny of Question
lists would show that many of the admitted Questions are also on matters of
local interest and trivial or routine in nature. It is not unknown that very often Questions are suggested or
drafted by persons other than the Members themselves. Sometimes, the Member giving notice is himself absent from the
House when his Question comes up for answer.
In some cases, very extensive information involving considerable
expenditure and effort in collection may be called for even though the
benefits, if any, may not be commensurate with the costs. Also, the necessary top priority given to
parliamentary Questions causes serious dislocation of normal work in the
Ministries and offices of the Government.
All this is not satisfactory and involves considerable waste of public
money and parliamentary time.
15.8 (v) Adjournment Motions:
The purpose of an adjournment motion is to bring before the House for
immediate discussion a matter of urgent public importance which is not already
included in the List of Business for the day and in regard to which a motion or
resolution with proper notice will be too late. An adjournment motion is admissible if the matter sought to be
raised is definite, urgent and one of public importance. The Speaker may, however, in his ‘absolute
discretion’, refuse to give his consent to moving of an adjournment motion
without giving any reasons. When
consent is so refused, Members
nevertheless try to raise the subject-matter of their notices before the House
and what follows often gives the impression of a tug-of-war between the Speaker
and the Members. This is unfortunate
and can perhaps be avoided if the Speaker concerns himself only with seeing if
the cardinal conditions for the admissibility of an adjournment motion are
satisfied. That is, if the matter
sought to be raised is definite, urgent and of public importance, he should
give his consent to the moving of the motion.
Instead of taking it upon himself to be arbiter of the relative merits
or otherwise of the various adjournment motions of which notices are received
and which are in order under the rules, he may leave it to the House to decide
if any of them and if so which one should be taken up for discussion by leave
of the House being granted. After all,
adjournment motions need no more be viewed as expressions of no-confidence in
the Government. Since, after
independence, the device of No-confidence Motion itself has become available,
stiff resistance to admitting any Adjournment Motions at all may be perhaps
somewhat misplaced, overdone and unnecessary.
15.9 Discussions in the House, on a motion of
adjournment, of a matter of urgent importance which may in any case, be upper
most in the minds of the members and of the people at large outside at a
particular time, can do no harm. It
may, if fact ease tensions and help to create a better and healthier atmosphere
both inside and outside the House.
15.10 (vi) Absenteeism of Members: Absenteeism of Members threatens to become a
serious malady. Members for whom the
quorum bells ring too often have many pressures on their time and energy
outside the House. In practice, the
quorum requirement is often ignored by not questioning the quorum. Suggestions have sometimes been made for
reducing the present minimum (1/10th) to constitute the quorum. What is required is ensuring better and
longer attendance by the Members in the Houses of Parliament. The citizens have certain claims on their representatives
and perhaps expectation of some minimum hours of presence in the house and some
minimum hours of parliamentary work each day would be quite legitimate. Those Members who are not so present in the
House may, therefore, under their own self-regulatory procedures, lose their
salary and allowances for the day.
15.11 (vii) Secretariats of Parliament:
Independence and impartiality of the secretariats of the two Houses and their
officers and staff are absolutely necessary for the success of the system. The Secretariats of Parliament need the very
best staff. The second best is not good
enough. But, developing a large
legislative bureaucracy may be dangerous, it must never become a rival to
executive bureaucracy. Parliamentary
staff must be small but of high quality and calibre e.g. each Committee should
have only one professional staff and one secretary.
15.12 It is most unfortunate that no law has so
far been passed under article 98(2).
Desirability of doing so at the earliest may be considered and efforts
made to reorganise the Secretariats as dynamic instruments with stress on
independence, efficiency, economy an promptness. Suitable arrangements may be made on a regular basis for
providing to all parliamentary officials special training and orientation in
parliamentary political science and legislative management techniques and
tools.
16. Conclusion : While we can legitimately proud of the
reasonably successful working of Parliament during the last five decades,
Parliament is relevant only as a dynamic institution ever adjusting its
functions and procedures to the changing needs of the times. If democracy and freedom are to endure, if
representative institutions are to be made impregnable and if the new economic
reforms and an all round effort at liberalisation are to bear fruits, it is essential to restore to
Parliament and its Members their traditional esteem and honour in the
affections of the people. Reforming the
Parliament in essential respects is already a categorical imperative. An integrated approach to political and
economic systems reforms is necessary.
No single reform can provide a miracle cure. Also, parliamentary reforms cannot be effected in a hurry. We must proceed with care and caution and
begin by setting up a Parliamentary Reforms Commission or a ‘Study of
Parliament Group’ outside parliament as was done in U.K. before the procedural
reforms. Finally, of course, the Rules
committee or a Special Procedure Committee of the House should report on the
matter.
16.1 Parliamentary reforms, political party reforms, electoral
reforms, judicial reforms, etc., all have to be taken up together in an
integrated approach to political and economic reforms and as part of the
overall review of the working of our Constitution. No single reform can provide a miracle cure and no reforms should
be effected in a hurry. We must proceed
with utmost care and caution and evolve a national consensus on desirable
changes.