From the Mundhra Scandal to the license scam, how Question Hour held the government accountable

Way back in 1958, during Jawaharlal Nehru’s second term as Prime Minister of India, the then MP from UP’s Rae Bareli, and Nehru’s son-in-law, Feroze Gandhi, was instrumental in exposing the Mundhra scandal -- Independent India’s first big financial scam—after he raised a question during Question Hour.

The scam involving the government-controlled Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) was not just an embarrassment to the Nehru government, but eventually led to the resignation of the then Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari.  Also, Haridas Mundhra, the Calcutta (now Kolkata)-based industrialist at the centre of the whole affair, was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

“It was Question Hour and MPs put questions to the Union Finance Minister. When Ram Subhag Singh questioned him, Feroze Gandhi saw that TTK’s  (Finance Minister TT Krishn­a­machari) legs began to shake,” Bertil Falk, Swedish journalist and biographer of Feroze Gandhi (Feroze - The Forgotten Gandhi) quotes HC Heda, Congress MP from Nizamabad, during a TV interview on September 15, 1993. Feroze had smelled foul play, prompting the question that led to the unearthing of the scandal, Falk wrote.

This episode was one of the first incidents in the past seven decades of India's Parliamentary democracy when through an MP’s question during Question Hour, a ministry was held accountable and action taken.

“Reducing Parliament to a notice board”

In recent days, the significant hour has drawn much attention after the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats notified that there will be no Question Hour during the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning September 14. While the government cited COVID-19 pandemic restrictions as a reason, the move has elicited sharp criticism from Opposition leaders who said it was akin to “murder of democracy” and “reducing parliament to a notice board”.

“Questioning the government is the oxygen of parliamentary democracy. This Govt seeks to reduce Parliament to a notice-board & uses its crushing majority as a rubber-stamp for whatever it wants to pass. The one mechanism to promote accountability has now been done away with,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor tweeted on Wednesday.

Question Hour - the first hour of a sitting session of the House proceedings - is devoted to questions that members of parliament raise about any aspect of governance. The concerned minister is obliged to answer to Parliament, either orally or in writing, depending on the type of question raised.

“It is through questions in the Parliament that the Government remains in touch with the people as much as members are enabled thereby to ventilate the grievances of the public in matters concerning the administration. Questions enable Ministries to gauge the popular reaction to their policy and administration,” the Lok Sabha website states.

Financial irregularities apart, Question Hour is often the liveliest part of any session of the House, and also brings out numbers and statistics regarding government functioning in the public domain.

In 1974, eighteen years after the Mundhra scandal, during the Indira Gandhi government of 1974, Tul Mohan Ram, a Congress MP from Araria in Bihar, was indicted in a corruption case relating to issuance of licenses from the then Foreign Trade Ministry, after the matter was raised during Question Hour. A memorandum, allegedly signed by 21 MPs, was submitted by traders of Puducherry to the Union Commerce Ministry to grant licenses for importing various items. The signatures were forged on the behest of Lalit Narain Mishra, a key aide of Indira Gandhi and the then Foreign Trade Minister. Mishra, however, died in a bomb blast during a visit to Samastipur in Bihar as Union Railway Minister on January 2, 1975.

COVID-19 excuse

Experts say Question Hour is an essential part of Parliamentary business and doing away with it was unheard-of wondering why the government was running away from questions. “The government is under a constitutional obligation to answer the question. MPs have all the rights to hold ministers accountable on aspects of governance. It will be unusual to not have a Question Hour," said PDT Achary, former Secretary General, Lok Sabha

The last occasion when Question Hour was done away with was during the Chinese aggression in 1962. The Winter Session was advanced and there was no Question Hour, after a consensus between the ruling and Opposition parties,

“Of course it has happened in the past. Sessions without questions were mostly during special sessions. But I do not remember a regular session without a Question Hour. The government is using Covid-19 as an excuse which doesn’t hold any logic. The point is when other businesses can take place why not Question Hour. I do not know why the government is running away from questions,” Achary said.

“Not running away from questions”

Responding to the criticism, the government on Wednesday said it was not running away from any debate and that all Opposition parties were informed.

“The government is ready for unstarred questions and it has requested presiding officers of both the Houses to facilitate the same,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi told news agency PTI. Unstarred questions are those to which written answers are given by ministers, while 'starred' questions are those to which answers are desired to be given orally on the floor of the House during Question Hour.

As per the norm, the minister receives questions fifteen days in advance to be prepared for Question Hour. Rules on the number of questions have changed over the years. The maximum questions, starred or unstarred, a member is now entitled to give is 10 per day.

At times, MPs have faced flak over absenteeism in the house during Question Hour. In November 2009, for example, absenteeism in the Lok Sabha brought Question Hour to an abrupt halt as 34 MPs who had given notice to ask questions were not present. Of the listed 20 questions, the House could take up only three.

"The honourable members who ask questions should be present in the House. It's a matter of concern if they are not there. I would be writing to the leaders of parties (on this issue)," the then Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar had said.

Many other democracies have a system where elected representatives ask questions that are answered by the Prime Minister or any other minister. A similar system, known as Prime Minister's Questions, exists in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom, in the Scottish Parliament as First Minister’s Questions, and as Question Period in the National Assembly for Wales.