When the House ceases to hold power to account

Why in the News

India’s legislatures now meet for a fraction of the time they once did, and the instruments through which they hold the executive to account have contracted with the calendar. The two Houses of Parliament averaged 127 sitting days a year in the 1950s and 138 in the following decade. The average fell to 55 days during the 17th Lok Sabha (2019 to 2024), with over 25 percent of available time lost to disruptions. State assemblies have fallen from about 80 days a year six decades ago to under 25, against the bar in Article 174(1) on a gap of more than six months between two sittings. The tension is that the constitutional floor is being treated as the target, so a House can be fully compliant with the Constitution and still not scrutinise the government at all.

How far has the legislative calendar contracted?

1. Parliament’s decline: The two Houses averaged 127 days a year in the 1950s and 138 in the 1960s. The 17th Lok Sabha averaged 55 days.
2. Time lost within the sitting days: The share of available time lost to disruptions has risen past 25 percent, so the effective working calendar is smaller than the sitting day count suggests.
3. The State picture is worse: Assemblies averaged around 80 days or more six decades ago and now sit for fewer than 25 days a year.
4. The constitutional minimum as a ceiling: Article 174(1) requires that six months not elapse between two sittings of a State legislature. Sessions are scheduled to satisfy that formality rather than to a calendar of business.

What does the State assembly record show?

1. Uttar Pradesh: From 45 to 50 days a year six decades ago to 15 to 20 days now.
2. Karnataka: From around 75 to 80 days in the 1970s to an average of 25 to 33 days.
3. Tamil Nadu: From 64 days a year to 32 days.
4. Punjab and Haryana: From 40 days to 10 to 15 days.
5. Bihar: From 60 days a year to 30 days.
6. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tripura: Sitting days in all three have fallen by 50 percent.

How does a shorter calendar disable the scrutiny instruments?

1. Question Hour loses its slots: Fewer sitting days mean fewer occasions on which ministers face direct questioning, and the instrument’s deterrent value rests on its frequency rather than on any single answer.
2. Call Attention Motions and Demands for Grants: Both compete for the same shrinking floor time, so departmental spending is approved with progressively less examination.
3. The anticipatory effect is gone: Ministers once prepared for a session expecting to be pinned down, and presiding officers pulled up those who came unprepared or misled the House. A House that hardly meets removes that expectation.
4. Committees are not compensating: Attendance in parliamentary committees runs at about 50 percent, so the forum meant to substitute for floor scrutiny is itself half attended.

What does the speed of law making reveal?

1. A hospital network in ninety seconds: On 30 August 2012 the Lok Sabha passed the AIIMS (Amendment) Bill, providing for six such hospitals at a cost of Rs 4,900 crore, in a minute and a half.
2. Three bills without debate: On 3 September 2012 the Lok Sabha passed three bills without debate, among them the Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, which governs the conditions of work of millions of women.
3. Two minute statutes: A bill creating three new High Courts in the Northeast was moved at 12:03 and passed at 12:05. The NIMHANS Bill was passed the following day in two minutes.
4. The pattern is current, not historic: In this year’s Monsoon Session two bills were cleared in three minutes each and three others in four minutes each.

What do the perquisites and the running cost say about the institution’s return?

1. Firearms through the Customs route: Parliament was informed four decades ago that 38 Members of Parliament had been allotted guns seized by the Customs Department over a period of 15 months.
2. The practice continued: A Right to Information application established that 82 MPs were allotted weapons between 2001 and 2012, including 13 who were facing criminal charges such as murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping.
3. The cost curve: Running Parliament cost Rs 36,000 a day in the 1950s, Rs 1.23 crore a day in 2004 and Rs 2 crore in 2012. PRS Legislative Research now estimates it at about Rs 9 crore a day.
4. Cost against output: The daily cost has risen by orders of magnitude while sitting days have fallen by more than half, so the expenditure per unit of scrutiny has risen on both sides of the ratio at once.

Challenges to legislative scrutiny of the executive

1. Disruption is a cross party incentive: Whichever parties occupy the opposition benches gain more visibility from an adjournment than from a debate, so obstruction is rational for the side that is supposed to scrutinise. Eg. Slogan shouting that ends in adjournment recurs irrespective of which alliance holds office at the Centre or in the States.
   The Fix: Transfer control of the sitting calendar and a fixed quota of opposition days to a Business Advisory Committee decision the government cannot override.
2. The executive controls when the House meets: Summoning is done on the advice of the Council of Ministers, so the body being scrutinised decides the scrutiny calendar. Eg. State governments schedule sessions to clear the six month bar in Article 174(1) and no further.
   The Fix: Fix a statutory minimum of sitting days a year, along the lines of the 110 day floor recommended by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2002.
3. The anti defection law suppresses independent scrutiny: A member voting against the party line on a government bill risks disqualification under the Tenth Schedule, which removes the incentive to examine legislation on merit. Eg. Party whips are routinely issued on ordinary legislation and not only on confidence motions.
   The Fix: Restrict the whip to confidence and money votes, as the Venkatachaliah Committee, 2002 recommended, so a vote against a clause is not a vote against the party.
4. Committee referral is discretionary: A presiding officer decides whether a bill goes to a Departmentally Related Standing Committee, so a government can pass a bill without any clause by clause examination. Eg. Only about 17 percent of bills in the 17th Lok Sabha were referred to the relevant standing committee, against 71 percent in the 15th.
   The Fix: Make committee referral mandatory for every bill other than a money bill, with a fixed reporting deadline after which the House may proceed regardless.
5. Members lack independent research capacity: A legislator without research staff cannot interrogate a ministry’s own numbers, so scrutiny depends on what the executive chooses to disclose. Eg. The United Kingdom Parliament maintains a dedicated Research Service for its members, which has no Indian equivalent inside the institution.
   The Fix: Fund a dedicated legislative research unit attached to each standing committee, staffed independently of the ministries it examines.
6. Financial scrutiny happens after the money is voted: The Public Accounts Committee examines expenditure once the Comptroller and Auditor General has reported on it, so the examination is retrospective. Eg. Between 2019 and 2023 about 80 percent of the Budget was passed without discussion, and in 2023 the entire Budget was approved without debate.
   The Fix: Fix a minimum number of days for discussion of the Demands for Grants of a rotating set of ministries before the guillotine is applied.

Conclusion

A legislature can satisfy every constitutional requirement on sittings and still stop scrutinising the government, which is what the sitting day and disruption record shows. Cutting members’ salaries and allowances treats remuneration as the lever, when the levers that actually decide scrutiny are who controls the calendar, whether committee referral is compulsory, and whether a whip can be issued on ordinary legislation. The forum to watch is the next conference of presiding officers, since a statutory floor on sitting days and a mandatory referral rule are decisions that body can place on its agenda.

What is executive accountability to the legislature?

1. About: It is the principle that the political executive holds office only so long as it retains the confidence of the popularly elected House, and must answer to that House for its decisions and its spending.
2. Rationale: India adopted a parliamentary system to secure harmony between legislature and executive and to make the government continuously answerable rather than answerable only at an election. Article 75(3) makes the Council of Ministers collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.
3. The questioning instruments: Zero Hour lets members raise urgent issues without notice, and Half Hour Discussions seek ministerial statements on matters already raised. Motions of no confidence, censure and adjournment express disapproval, and a passed no confidence motion requires the government to resign. Eg. The censure motion of 2012 against the policy on foreign direct investment in retail.
4. Financial and committee control: Cut Motions allow the House to reduce or reject specific budget allocations. The Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee and the Departmentally Related Standing Committees carry the detailed financial and policy oversight. Eg. The Public Accounts Committee’s 2011 report on the 2G spectrum case.

Back2Basics: PRS Legislative Research

1. What it is: PRS Legislative Research is an independent, non profit research initiative based in New Delhi that tracks the functioning of Parliament and the State legislatures.
2. What it produces: It publishes sitting day counts, session productivity, bill summaries, budget analyses and voting records, and provides legislative briefs to members across parties.
3. Its standing: It is not a government body and has no statutory role, so its figures are cited precisely because they are compiled outside the institutions they measure.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2021, GS2, 10 marks] To what extent, in your view, the Parliament is able to ensure accountability of the executive in India?”