Are the parliamentary sessions actually working towards what they are meant for?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

March 21, 2015

On 20 March, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M.Venkaiah Naidu said that the first phase of the ongoing budget session of the Parliament (before the recess) has been “most significant and rewarding” of the four sessions of Parliament since the Government assumed office in May, 2014. The minister pointed out that Lok Sabha had passed 14 Bills while Rajya Sabha seven and both the Houses passed a set of seven Bills.  In terms of productivity, as the minister pointed out, Lok Sabha’s was impressive 123.45%. As for the Rajya Sabha, it was 106.79%.

What was significant was that the Lok Sabha sat beyond the scheduled business hours on 11 days while the upper house did so on nine days.

Indeed, the statistics are a revelation, especially at a time when our Parliament has earned the dubious reputation of being a place for adjournments, disruptions and ruckus than debates and discourses for suitable legislations to serve the country well. In the budget session, disruption of proceedings came down significantly – the Lok Sabha lost 1 hour 46 minutes due to interruptions, and the Rajya Sabha lost 4 hours 21 minutes. The government’s move to make up for these losses by working extra hours was gladdening. While the Lower House functioned for an additional 27 hours 12 minutes, the Upper House worked for an additional 11 hours 41 minutes!

Statistics Reveal an Alarming Trend

Before dwelling on the subject, it may be made clear that dissents are very core of democratic values. To censure the government through various constitutional provisions such as adjournments, walkouts and anti-trust motion is the prerogative of the Opposition. Yet, even such provisions in the past had lost relevance as chaos rather than order ruled the House. It was in the winter session of 2013 when three separate notices for no-confidence motions were sought to be moved. However, these could not be admitted because of disruptions and adjournments purportedly designed to deviate from main issues. The Parliament has long been a sufferer because of such pandemonium.

In the same year, both budget and winter sessions were curtailed and the Parliament was adjourned two days ahead of planned schedule! Records suggest that in 2013, 56 per cent of the Parliament’s time was “wasted” and even the “the Finance Bill was passed without discussion” in the Budget session. Government statistics indicate that that even 2012 was no better. The monsoon session of the Lok Sabha’s worked for only 22 per cent ( less than a quarter) of the scheduled time and passed only four bills leaving a backlog of more than 100 pending legislations, some as old as 25 years old! The Rajya Sabha was only marginally better, working 29% of the total time!

The winter session of 2010 is considered one of the most unproductive parliamentary sessions that witnessed only 7.62 productive hours as against 138 hours available. Even during  the budget session that year, frequent disruptions and walkouts over issues like 2G spectrum allocation, phone tapping, and IPL controversy had led to wastage of 115 working hours out of the 385 of both the Houses and the government then could only get six of the 27 planned bills cleared.

Logjams in the 15th Parliament were largely because of the various scams that hit the surface during this period. They did impact legislative business and certainly ate up valuable time to deliberate upon many other important bills. A study showed that since 2009, one in every five bills had been passed with discussion of less than five minutes on the floor of the House! In fact, on 4 September, 2013, Lok Sabha cleared three bills within 20 minutes!

There had been instances wherein interruptions in the functioning of Parliament were justified as integral to democracy. It is apt to quote the then leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (now Finance Minister) Arun Jaitley, who had said, “By disrupting Parliament, we have given out a message to the country. When we disrupted Parliament three years back on 2G scam, the telecom sector was cleaned…”

It transpires therefore that the Opposition look at disrupting the parliamentary proceedings as the best way to tackle issue of perceived corruption by the ruling party or coalition. Coal block allocations (termed as Coalgate scam), irregularities in 2G Spectrum allocations, 51 per cent FDI in Retail, the Commonwealth Games scam were some major issues that resulted in the Opposition stalling parliamentary proceedings during the Congress-led UPA regime. On the flip side, there were Kargil coffin scam, and the Tehelka expose on arms middlemen were some of the issues that made the Congress-led Opposition stall the parliament during the NDA regime led by Atal Behari Vajpayee. More often than not, it is the perceived involvement of the government in corrupt practices that have contributed largely to the disruptions of the Parliament.

Fast Facts on Disruptions in the Parliament

1. -- 74 per cent of the Parliament’s time was wasted during the winter session of 1995 because of the uproar over a scam involving Sukh Ram, the then Telecom Minister.
2. -- 41 per cent of the Parliament’s time was wasted during the Budget session of 2001 as the Opposition demanded setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to look into the stock market scam. On the same issue, 40 per cent of the Parliament’s time was further wasted during the winter session that year.
3. -- The Winter Session of the Parliament in 2004 saw only 33 per cent of the time utilised for productive work following the boycott of tainted ministers (read Lalu Yadav).

Adverse Impact of Stalled Parliamentary Proceedings

Considering the government estimate (of 2012) that each minute of Parliament in session costs the exchequer Rs. 2.5 lakh, disruptions lead to a huge waste of public money. This issue has been raked up time and again, but without any fruitful conclusion.

In an article written in August 2012, Jaitley had sought to justify stalling the proceedings of Parliament on grounds that “if parliamentary accountability is subverted and a debate is intended to be used merely to put a lid on parliamentary accountability, it is then a legitimate tactic…”

Thankfully, the last couple of sessions have seen much lesser disruptions. Can this trend sustain? At least the government does have the mandate in the Lok Sabha to ensure this, but the Opposition still has enough muscle to stall the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha. It is a challenge for the Modi government to counter this politics of ‘obstructionism’ that derails development and inclusive growth
.