Summary

Polity Class 24

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS CLASS: (05:00:00 PM)

Parliamentary process and functions.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES: (05:04:00 PM)

Need for Parliamentary Committees:
It becomes difficult for the legislature to discuss and debate and finally to decide on the floor of the House.
Political considerations usually will not allow Parliamentarians to have an impartial and unbiased discussion on the floor of the House as they have to support mostly the Opinion of their respective political parties.
Delegated legislation has also reduced the contribution of individual members of parliament to law-making.
The number of days parliament meets in a year has also come down drastically, leading to a decline in the contribution by the legislature.
In order to overcome the above weaknesses and also to make executives accountable to the legislature, parliamentary committee systems have come into existence.
Parliamentary Committees can be divided into:
1. Standing Committees(Permanent):
They can be divided into:
a. Financial Committees
b. Non-Financial Committees.
They include Public Account Committees, estimates Committee, Committee on The Public Sector Undertakings(PSUs)
Departmental Standing Committees,
Business Advisory Committee, Committee of Privileges, Ethics Committee, and so on.
2. Ad-hoc Committees(Temporary):
They can be:
a. Advisory Committees: They include Select or Joint Committees, which are appointed to give suggestions on the bills.
b. Inquiry Committees: They are constituted to inquire into and also to report their findings to the House.
Based on these reports, the House can recommend actions to the executives.
Financial Committees:
Public Accounts Committee:
It is the oldest Committee of our parliament.
It has come into existence in 1921, and it is also known as Mini-parliament.
Its total strength is 22 members(15 from Lok Sabha and 7 from Rajya Sabha)
By tradition, the Chairman should be from the Opposition party.
Their tenure is 1 year.
Members are elected based on proportional representation.
The speaker nominates the members.
Its main function is to evaluate the performance of the ministries and departments.
It examines the report of the CAG(Comptroller and Auditor General of India).
Based on the reports submitted by CAG, this committee examines public expenditure not only from a legal and technical point of view, but more importantly from the perspective of corruption, inefficiency, propriety, wastage, and diversion of resources.
It submits its report to the Parliament and the executive is expected to implement the recommendation made by the Committee.

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE: (05:26:00 PM)

It was created in 1950.
Originally it had 25 members, but later in 1956 increased to 30 (All from Lok Sabha).
Members are elected based on Proportional representation.
The tenure is 1 year.
The speaker nominates the members.
A minister can not be part of the committee.
If any member is appointed as Minister, he/she should resign from the committee.
The Chairman of the Committee is also nominated by the Speaker and the Chairman is from the ruling political party.
It is also known as Continuous Economy Commitee.
This Committee will look into the demands for the grants of various ministries and departments and suggest a reduction in the expenditure.
This Committee can also suggest alternative policies to the concerned ministries and departments.
This committee performs its functions all through the year and gives recommendations that are only advisory in nature.
This committee can also suggest how the estimates of the expenditure can be presented to the parliament.

COMMITTEE ON PSUs(PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKINGS): (05:34:00 PM)

From 2nd five-year plan onwards the government opted for State led development with maximum importance given to PSUs.
Huge amounts of money taxpayer money are invested in these PSUs without any accountability to the legislature.
To make sure that these PSUs are accountable to the legislature this committee came into existence in 1964 based on the recommendation of the Krishna Menon Committee.
At present this committee has 22 members(15 from LS and 7 from RS)
This committee examines the performance of various PSUs and recommends measures to improve their performance.

MAJOR WEAKNESSES OF COMMITTEES: (O5:43:00 PM)

The recommendations of all these Committees are only advisory in nature.
It is not mandatory for the executives to implement these recommendations.
reports of these Committees are not discussed on the floor of the House.
It becomes difficult for ordinary citizens to know about the performance of these Committees as their reports are never discussed.
The term of these Committees is only 1 year and it becomes difficult for members of parliament who are professional politicians to understand the technical aspects of governance within such a short period.
Services of CAG are available only to the PAC but not to other Financial Committees of the Parliament.
It reduces their effectiveness.
Parliament's control over the finances is neither sufficient nor effective.
Budgets are mostly passed without any discussions or debate (Guillotined).
CAG performs a job that is post-mortem in nature, that is, it evaluates the performance only after the money is spent.
It becomes impossible for the government to recover any losses.
These Committees, especially, PAC perform their functions based on the report submitted by the CAG. It reduces the effectiveness of the PAC.
These Committees can not question the policies of the government.
They can also not look into the day-to-day administration of ministries and departments.
On average, PAC evaluates the performance of around 7 to 8 ministries in a year.
For the same ministry to be evaluated again, it would take at least 7 years!
The government has mostly lined-item budgets wherein the budgetary document provides information only about the amount of money to be spent on a particular service. This expenditure is not linked to either output or outcome.
It reduces the effectiveness of parliamentary control.
Conflict of interest is ignored while appointing members to the Committees.
These Committees also do not have sufficient powers to punish officials who deliberately skip the meetings of the committees.
It is also observed that these committees have also been less effective because of the unwillingness on the part of the executive to share information.
The executive would mostly take shelter under Official Secretes Act to deny information to these committees.
In the case of departmental standing committees, the government has stopped the practice of sending bills to these committees before they are put to vote on the floor of the House.

SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES: (06:02:00 PM)

1. It should be made mandatory for the executives to submit an action-taken report based on recommendations made by these committees.
It must include the recommendations which are accepted and implemented, which are accepted and will be implemented in the future(with time limits), and the recommendation which is rejected providing sufficient reasons for their rejection.
2. Both Houses of Parliament must allocate specific time for discussions of these reports.
The term of the committee can be extended to at least 3 years.
3. Conflict of interest should be taken into consideration while appointing members to these committees.
4. CAG must be allowed to conduct a pre-audit and concurrent audit.
This concurrent audit can vastly improve the performance of the PAC.
Services of CAG should be made available to other financial committees of the Parliament.
5. As recommended by the 2nd ARC Official Secretes Act should be removed so that these committees can have complete access to government information.
6. Members of these committees can be given training in those specific ministries and departments so that they can ensure effective control over the executive.
7. Article 107, can be amended to make it mandatory for the government to refer all the Bills to departmental Standing Committees before they are taken up for voting.
8. These committees should also be given the power to punish officials for their absence from the meetings of committees.
9. Members of these committees should also raise above selfish political interests and must work together so that they can retain their credibility in the eyes of the people.

PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IN INDIA- IMPORTANT FACTS: (06:18:00 PM)

Our parliament consists of Lok Sabha, Raya Sabha, and the President.
Articles 79 to 142 in Part V deals with the Parliament.
Lok Sabha(LS):
LS constituencies are divided into territorial constituencies and the government makes sure that the proportion of the population in every constituency will be the same for all the states. But it does not apply to those states that have less than 6 million population.
42nd CAA had frozen the number of seats in the LS till the year 2000, at the 1971 census level.
84th CAA had extended this till 2026.
Resevration of seats for SCs and STs.
104th CAA has extended the reservation of seats for another 10 years in 2020.
104th CAA also has removed the provision of nominating two members from the Ango-Indian Community to LS.
This was removed as the government felt that there are not enough numbers of Anglo-Indians living in the country for them to be nominated.
According to government statistics, there are only 153 Anglo-Indians.
Qualifications to become a member of LS:
A person must be a citizen of India.
He must be of not less than 25 years of age. (For Rajya Sabha it is 30 years).
He must also possess other qualifications prescribed by the Parliament.
Must be registered as an elector for a parliamentary constituency.
He must be a member of a Scheduled Caste or ST in any state or Union Territory if he wants to contest for the seats reserved for SCs & STs.

DISQUALIFICATION OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT: (06:58:00 PM)

Conditions for the disqualification:
If any member holds an office of profit position under the Union or State government.
If any member is of unsound mind and declared so by a court.
If he/she is an undischarged insolvent.
If he is not a citizen of India or has voluntarily acquired citizenship of any foreign country.
If he is also disqualified under any law made by the Parliament.
Under RPA 1951, the parliament has prescribed certain conditions for disqualification:
a. If the person is found guilty of committing electoral malpractice.
b. If a person is convicted for any offense that results in imprisonment for two or more years.
c. If a person fails to lodge his election expenses within the specific time period fixed by the Election Commission.
d. If the person has any interest in government contracts, works, or services.
e. If the person is the Director or an agent or holds an office of profit in any corporation wherein the government has at least 25% shares.
f. If the person is dismissed from the government services for corruption or disloyalty to the State.
g. If the person is convicted for promoting enmity between different groups or for bribery.
h. If the person is convicted for preaching or practicing social evils like untouchability, dowry, and Sati.
The decisions related to the disqualification will be taken by the President and His decision is final but the President must take the opinion of the Election Commission before taking the decision.
A member of parliament also vacates his seat under the following circumstances:
Under RPA, 1951:
a. If a person is elected to both Houses of Parliament, he must intimate within 10 days in which House he wants to serve.
If he does not intimate his seat in Rajya Sabha becomes vacant.
b. If a sitting member of one House is also elected to the other House, his seat in the first House becomes vacant.
c. If a person is elected to two seats in the same House, he should give his preference otherwise both the seats would become vacant.
d. A person can not be a member of both Parliament and State legislature at the same time.
If he is elected to the, his seat in parliament becomes vacant, if he does not resign his seat in the State legislature within 14 days.
e. A member can also resign by writing to either Chairman of Rajya Sabha or the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
If the resignation is accepted the seat would fall vacant.
f. If a member is absent from all meetings of the House for a period of 60 days without the permission of the House then also the member can be disqualified.
g. If his election is declared void by the judiciary.
h. If he is expelled by the House.
i. If he is elected to the office of President or Vice-President.
j. If he is appointed as Governor of a state.

IMPORTANCE OF RAJYA SABHA(RS): (07:43:00 PM)

India has opted for bicameral legislation on ht lines of the British parliamentary democracy. But Rajya Sabha(Council of States) is more prominent than the House of Lords in the British parliament.
RS powers can be defined in the following manner:
1. Where RS has equal powers with LS.
2. Where RS has unequal powers with LS.
3. Where RS has Special Powers that LS does not have.
1. Where RS has equal powers with LS:
a. Introduction and passage of ordinary Bills.
b. Election and impeachment of the president.
c. Election and removal of the Vice-president.
Only RS can initiate the process of impeachment of the Vice-Presindent.
The resolution for the same has to be passed by RS with the effective majority and by LS with a simple majority.
d. Approval of ordinances issued by the President.
e. Introduction and passage of Constitution Amendment Bills.
f. Appraval of all types of emergencies.
g. Selection of the ministers in the council of ministers including the Prime minister.
h. Consideration of reports of constitutional bodies like the Finance Commission, UPSC, and CAG.
i. Expanding the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and UPSC.

TOPICS FOR THE NEXT CLASS: Continuation importance of Rajya Sabha.