Updated: December 17, 2020 12:15:18 pm
Over the years, there has been a decline in the days of Parliament sessions. During Parliament’s first two decades, Lok Sabha met an average of just over 120 days a year. This has dropped to roughly 70 days in the last decade.
In response to a letter from the leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury requesting a short session of Parliament to discuss the new agricultural laws, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi has said that some opposition parties “have expressed concern about the ongoing pandemic and have expressed the opinion of ending the winter session.”
Sessions of Parliament
The power to call a session of Parliament rests with the government. The decision is made by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, which currently consists of nine ministers, including Defense, Interior, Finance and Law. The Committee’s decision is formalized by the President, on whose behalf the deputies are summoned to meet for a session.
India does not have a fixed parliamentary calendar. By convention, Parliament meets for three sessions a year. The longest, the Budget Session, begins at the end of January and concludes at the end of April or the first week of May. The session has a recess so that the Parliamentary Committees can discuss the budget proposals.
The second session is the three-week monsoon session, which generally begins in July and ends in August. The parliamentary year ends with a three-week winter session, held from November to December.
In 1955, the Lok Sabha General Purpose Committee recommended a general outline of sessions. It was accepted by the government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, but it was not implemented. 📣 Follow Express explained on Telegram
What the Constitution says
The convocation of Parliament is specified in article 85 of the Constitution. Like many other articles, it is based on a provision of the Government of India Act 1935. This provision specified that the central legislature should be convened to meet at least once a year, and that no more than 12 months could elapse between two sessions.
Dr. BR Ambedkar stated that the purpose of this provision was to convene the legislature only to collect revenue, and that the annual meeting was designed to avoid government scrutiny by the legislature. On the floor of the Constituent Assembly, he said: “We think and personally I also believe that the environment has completely changed and I do not believe that any executive from now on will be capable of showing this type of insensitive behavior towards the legislature.”
His wording of the provision reduced the gap between sessions to six months and specified that Parliament should meet at least twice a year. He argued that “The clause in its current form does not prevent the legislator from being convened more frequently than is foreseen in the clause itself. In fact, my fear is, if I can say it, that the sessions of Parliament are so frequent and so long that the members of the legislature would probably tire themselves of the sessions.
During the debate, the members of the Constituent Assembly highlighted three issues: (i) the number of sessions in a year, (ii) the number of days of session and, (iii) who should have the power to convene Parliament.
Professor KT Shah from Bihar was of the opinion that Parliament should meet throughout the year, with breaks in between. Others wanted Parliament to meet for longer periods and gave examples of the British and American legislatures meeting for more than 100 days a year during that time. Professor Shah also wanted the Presidents of the two Houses to be empowered to convene Parliament under certain circumstances. These suggestions were not accepted by Dr. Ambedkar.
Moved, retarded, stretched
Over the years, governments have changed the dates of the sessions to accommodate political and legislative demands. In 2017, the winter session was delayed due to the Gujarat Assembly elections. In 2011, political parties agreed to interrupt the Budget Session in order to campaign for the Vidhan Sabha elections in five states.
Sessions have also been interrupted or delayed to allow the government to issue ordinances. For example, in 2016, the Budget Session was divided into two separate sessions to allow for the issuance of an Ordinance.
Sessions have been lengthened: in 2008, the two-day Monsoon Session (in which a no-confidence motion was filed against the UPA-I government on the India-US nuclear deal) was extended until December. The apparent reason was to avoid the movement of another censorship movement. It meant there were only two sessions that year.
Fewer sessions at home
Over the years, there has been a decline in the days of Parliament sessions. During Parliament’s first two decades, Lok Sabha met an average of just over 120 days a year. This has dropped to roughly 70 days in the last decade.
An institutional reason for this is the reduction of Parliament’s workload by its Standing Committees, which, since the 1990s, have anchored debates outside the House. However, various committees have recommended that Parliament meet for at least 120 days a year. The leader of Congress, Pawan Kumar Bansal, during his tenure as a member of Rajya Sabha, made this proposal in his private membership bills. Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral, in his 2017 Private Member Bill, suggested that Parliament should meet for four sessions in one year, including a 15-day special session to discuss matters of urgent public importance.
This year, Parliament has met for 33 days. The last time it met for less than 50 days was in 2008, when it met for 46 days.
This article first appeared in print on December 17, 2020 under the title ‘How Parliament meets’. Chakshu Roy is the head of outreach Legislative Investigation PRS.
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