Poor attendance in Parliamentary panels a rising concern

Parliament (File Pic)

On December 21, the Rajya Sabha approved the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, amid protests by Opposition members demanding the Bill be referred to a select committee for scrutiny.

Around the same time, in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani said the Centre has decided to send the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which she had introduced, to a Parliamentary standing committee for scrutiny.

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The demand for sending Bills to panels is common in Parliamentary procedures. The ongoing Winter Session of Parliament, likely to end today, was no exception. But the attendance level at committee meetings paints a dismal picture.

Sample this: On November 26, the meeting of the standing committee on Agriculture, headed by BJP MP PC Gaddigoudar, was adjourned as only six out of 29 MPs showed up. Of its 29 members, 21 are Lok Sabha MPs while eight are from the Rajya Sabha.

On July 28, the meeting of the standing committee on Information Technology led by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor to discuss the Pegasus snooping issue could not be held due to the lack of a quorum — the minimum number of members needed to proceed.

Why do these panels matter?

It is not possible for lawmakers to discuss the humongous volume of legislative business listed in the three sessions of Parliament yearly in detail on the floor of the House. Parliamentary panels, comprising a cross-section of members from both Houses, perform this function by discussing legislation at length and suggesting improvements. In a way, these panels monitor the functioning of the executive.

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“When a Bill comes into the House, it has just been drafted by a government draftsman and approved by the Cabinet. The House, we know, doesn’t have the time to discuss every Bill. So, when the committee scrutinises the Bill and comes up with suggestions, you will have a better law,” PDT Achary, former Secretary General, Lok Sabha, told Moneycontrol

Committee categories

Parliament has multiple committees broadly categorised into two kinds — standing/permanent committees and ad hoc committees. The standing committees include three Financial Standing Committees and 24 Department-Related Standing Committees (DRSCs). With 31 MPs, 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha, each DRSC also examines policy issues in ministries. The ad hoc committees are set up to review a Bill and can either be a Select or a Joint Committee.

Until the Monsoon Session in 2021, 12 percent of the Bills introduced in Parliament had been referred to a committee in the current (17th) Lok Sabha, much lower than the 14th (60 percent), 15th (71 per cent), and 16th (27 per cent) Lok Sabhas, according to PRS Legislative Research.

The concern

The poor attendance of parliamentarians has been flagged many times. Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has raised the issue frequently in the recent past. In his remarks on the first day of the Monsoon Session on July 19, 2021, Naidu said that he had urged Chairpersons of all the eight panels of the Rajya Sabha to ensure attendance of at least 50 percent of the members of each committee.

But there has been little improvement.

According to data released by the Rajya Sabha secretariat in September, in the 361 meetings of different parliamentary panels held between last September and August 2021, the attendance of members was less than 46 per cent.

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The numbers were released after a review ordered by Naidu. Panel meetings are held throughout the year. Out of the strength of 243 members in the Upper House, only 16 members had attended all meetings during the period.

Higher participation in standing committee meetings is essential for the functioning of Parliament for they act as its backbone in scrutinising legislation and holding the government accountable. Moreover, the functioning of these meetings is not marred by political partisanship as witnessed in the proceedings of the two Houses, says Chakshu Roy, Head of Legislative and Civic Engagement, PRS Legislative Research.

“They are also the only forums where MPs, irrespective of their seniority, can have their views heard and concerns addressed. With the key role played by parliamentary committees, it is incumbent on MPs to seriously participate in their proceedings. And the bare minimum for that would be to show up for meetings,” Roy told Moneycontrol.

The concern has been persisting for long. In September, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla sought a report on the attendance of members in the panels.

In December 2019, for example, numbers released by the Rajya Sabha showed around 100 of the 248 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Parliamentarians in eight panels under the Upper House skipped two or more meetings since their re-constitution two months ago.

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The average attendance of every departmentally-related standing committee was 54 percent in the second session (November-December 2019) and 48 percent in the third session (January-March) of the current Lok Sabha, according to an analysis by India Spend.

The standing committee on finance, which scrutinises the expenditure of the Ministry of Finance, had the lowest attendance of all as over 78 percent of its members were not present at the committee meetings held between November and March, the analysis said.

Speaking after the inauguration of the centennial year celebration of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), President Ram Nath Kovind said that Parliamentary committees ensure “administrative accountability” of the executive towards the legislature.

The Origin and the quorum

These panels trace their origins to the British Parliament, where the first Parliamentary Committee was set up in 1571. The origin of the Committee system in India can be traced back to the Constitutional Reforms of 1919.

The panels can meet throughout the year under rules for each meeting. The quorum — the minimum number of members who must be present to make the proceedings valid — is one-third of the total number of members in the committee.

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“The panels are important. There can be reasons for members to skip some meetings. It should not become a trend,” said BJP MP PP Chaudhary, who headed the 30-member committee on the Data Protection Bill.

If there is no quorum, the chairperson of the committee may either suspend the meeting until there is a quorum or adjourn the sitting to another day.

Some members have called for changes in the rules of the meetings. “Most important is how long the panel proceedings will be held in-camera. There is a debate that while MPs work very hard in these panels, this is not reflected in the media,” BJD MP and Chairman of the labour standing committee Bhartruhari Mahtab said recently.