Parliamentary control over the executive and the power of the purse

Detail

Why Parliament must control the executive

• Executive means the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers and the civil servants who carry out laws. In India the executive comes from the legislature and stays in office only while the Lok Sabha supports it.
• Collective responsibility (Article 75(3)) means the whole Council of Ministers answers to the Lok Sabha together. If the House withdraws its support, all ministers leave office together.
• Cabinet dictatorship is a situation where a Cabinet backed by a disciplined majority controls the legislature, instead of the other way round:
• The ruling party has a large majority, and party discipline (the whip) keeps its MPs in line.
• Bills and budgets pass almost automatically.

• "The Cabinet leads and the House merely follows". The Cabinet could then use "unlimited and arbitrary powers".

• Parliamentary control over the executive is the set of tools Parliament uses to keep the government answerable. Control works at three stages:

• policy-making, when Parliament debates what the government plans to do;
• implementation, when Parliament questions how laws and schemes are being run;

• post-implementation, when Parliament audits and reviews results through CAG reports and committees.

• There are four instruments: deliberation, approving or refusing laws, financial control and the no-confidence motion.

Instrument 1 — Deliberation and discussion

• Question Hour is the first hour of a sitting, when MPs ask ministers questions and ministers must reply. NCERT calls it "like giving an examination almost every day".

• In the 17th Lok Sabha (2019–24), Question Hour ran for 60% of its scheduled time in the Lok Sabha and 52% in the Rajya Sabha [2].

• Zero Hour is the time right after Question Hour. MPs can raise urgent issues without giving the usual advance notice. It is an Indian practice and is not named in the Rules.

• Half-an-hour discussion is a short debate on a question that was not answered fully during Question Hour.
• Adjournment motion is a motion to set aside the House's normal business so it can discuss an urgent matter of public importance. It works as a strong rebuke to the government.
• Limit: these tools expose the government's mistakes, but they cannot force it to change course. They depend on the House actually sitting. The 17th Lok Sabha held 274 sittings and used 88% of its scheduled time [2].

Instrument 2 — Approving or refusing laws

• No bill becomes law without the consent of both Houses. This gives Parliament, especially the Rajya Sabha, the power to bargain.
• Governments without a Rajya Sabha majority had to make concessions to get bills passed, as in 1977 (Janata government) and 2000 (NDA government).
• POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Bill) was rejected by the Rajya Sabha. It became law only through a joint sitting of both Houses in 2002 (Article 108).
• Lokpal Bill: an anti-corruption ombudsman bill that was introduced and lapsed many times from 1968 onwards (NCERT: the Lokpal Bill "failed").
• The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 was later passed.
• On 19 March 2019, the President appointed the first Chairperson and eight Members (four of them judicial) on the advice of the Selection Committee under Section 4(1) of the Act [6].

• Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose took oath as the first Chairperson on 23 March 2019 [6].

• Weak spot: bills referred to committees for detailed study. Only 16% of bills went to committees in the 17th Lok Sabha. This was lower than in each of the three Lok Sabhas before it [2].

Instrument 3 — Financial control (the power of the purse)

Financial control by Parliament means the government cannot raise or spend public money without Parliament's approval. Through money, Parliament also controls policy: "through financial control, the legislature controls the policy of the government".

Constitutional rule	Article	What it means
No tax without law	Art. 265	No tax can be levied or collected except by authority of law.
Budget is compulsory	Art. 112	The President must lay the Annual Financial Statement (budget) before both Houses every year.
Money only through appropriation	Arts. 114, 266	Money can leave the Consolidated Fund of India (the government's main account, Art. 266) only through an Appropriation Act passed by Parliament (Art. 114).

• Budget as an accountability tool: the Lok Sabha examines why each ministry needs money before approving its demands for grants (a ministry's request for money, voted ministry by ministry).
• Cut motions are motions to reduce a demand, and they are used to show disapproval [5]:
• Policy cut: reduce the demand to Re 1, to reject the ministry's policy.
• Economy cut: reduce it by a specific amount, to save money.
• Token cut: reduce it by Rs 100, to raise a specific grievance.

• If a cut motion is passed, it signals that the government has lost the House's confidence, and the Cabinet is expected to resign [5].

• Checking spending after it happens:

• The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) audits government accounts.

• The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) examines CAG reports and recommends action. This exposes waste and misuse [5].

• Class 8 view: "whose money does the government spend?" It is the people's money. So Parliament first approves government spending and then keeps watch over it.

• In the 2025-26 budget speech, the Finance Minister quoted the Tirukkural on good rule: people look to a just ruler the way living beings look to the rain.

Limits on financial control

• Guillotine: on the last day set aside for demands for grants, the Speaker puts all demands not yet discussed to vote together, without debate [5].
• All demands for grants were guillotined in 2004-05, 2013-14 and 2018-19 [5].
• In the 17th Lok Sabha (2019–23), about 80% of the budget was voted without discussion on average [2].
• In 2023, the entire budget was passed without discussion [2].

• The Lok Sabha discussed the budget for only about 35 hours on average each year [2].

• Audit is post facto: CAG and PAC reports come after the money has already been spent. They can expose misuse, but they cannot stop it.

• Majority effect: a government with a disciplined majority rarely loses a vote on a cut motion.

Instrument 4 — No-confidence motion

• A no-confidence motion is a motion stating that the House no longer trusts the Council of Ministers. If the Lok Sabha passes it, the government must resign (Article 75(3)).
• NCERT calls it "fictional rather than real" when a government has a stable majority.

• August 2023: one no-confidence motion was moved and debated for 20 hours in the 17th Lok Sabha. The government survived [2].

• After 1989, coalition governments fell when allies withdrew their support:

• V.P. Singh (1990);
• H.D. Deve Gowda (1997);

• A.B. Vajpayee (1999), which lost the confidence vote by one vote.

• So the motion is a real threat when the government's majority is thin or depends on allies.

Committees — "miniature legislatures"

• Parliamentary committees are small groups of MPs who study bills, demands for grants, spending and corruption cases in detail. NCERT calls them "miniature legislatures". The House rarely rejects their advice.
• Departmentally Related Standing Committees (DRSCs) are permanent committees, each watching a group of ministries (NCERT: standing committees exist "since 1983, over twenty").
• 8 April 1993: 17 DRSCs began work. Each had 15 Rajya Sabha + 30 Lok Sabha members [3].
• July 2004: seven more were added, bringing the total to 24 [3].
• 8 come under the Chairman, Rajya Sabha and 16 under the Speaker, Lok Sabha [3].
• Each now has 31 members: 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. Together they cover every ministry and department [4][3].

• They also examine the demands for grants of their ministries [5].

• Joint Parliamentary Committees (JPCs) are formed for a particular task, such as studying a bill or looking into financial irregularities. They have members from both Houses.

• The accountability loop (Class 8, Ayush example):
• The Standing Committee on Health recommended separate Ayush departments.
• The ministry replied in an action-taken report, explaining what it had done.
• The committee reviewed that reply. This is how the executive keeps answering to Parliament between sessions.

Parliamentary privilege

• Parliamentary privilege means special rights that let MPs do their work without fear. Its key part is that no legal action can be taken against a member for anything said in the House (Article 105 for Parliament).
• Breach of privilege happens when someone obstructs or insults the House or its members. The presiding officer (Speaker or Chairman) decides whether a breach has taken place.
• NCERT's thought bubble asks whether MPs caught taking money in a sting operation can claim privilege. The point is that privilege protects free speech, not wrongdoing.

Prelims Hooks

• Art. 265: no tax without authority of law. Art. 266: Consolidated Fund of India. Art. 114: Appropriation Bill. Art. 112: Annual Financial Statement (budget).
• Art. 75(3): collective responsibility of the Council of Ministers to the Lok Sabha only, not the Rajya Sabha.
• Cut motions: policy cut = Re 1; economy cut = a specific amount; token cut = Rs 100 [5].
• DRSCs: started 1993 with 17 committees, raised to 24 in 2004; 31 members each (21 LS + 10 RS); 16 under the Speaker and 8 under the Chairman [3][4].
• Guillotine: voting all remaining demands together without debate. The whole budget was passed without discussion in 2023 [2].
• Lokpal: set up under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013. The first Chairperson was Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose (March 2019) [6].
• Trap: the PAC examines CAG reports after spending (post facto). It does not approve the budget.
• Governments that lost the confidence of the House: V.P. Singh (1990), Deve Gowda (1997), Vajpayee (1999, by one vote).
• Trap: Zero Hour is not mentioned in the Rules of Procedure. It is an Indian practice.

Mains Points

• Cabinet dictatorship vs accountability: stable majorities and anti-defection discipline make the no-confidence motion "fictional". Real checks have moved to the Rajya Sabha, committees and the CAG. Examples:
• only 16% of bills went to committees in the 17th Lok Sabha [2];

• no Deputy Speaker was elected for the whole term, a first [2].

• The power of the purse is weakening: about 80% of the budget was guillotined during 2019–23, and none of it was discussed in 2023 [2]. Audit is post facto. Reforms often proposed:

• more sitting days;
• compulsory DRSC scrutiny of demands before voting;

• a parliamentary budget office for independent analysis.

• Committees as the real workshop: DRSCs work across party lines, away from TV cameras, and use action-taken reports to follow up (the Ayush example). The case for reform is to make referral of bills compulsory and to give committees better research staff.

• Coalition era (1989–2014) as a check: fragile majorities brought back real executive accountability (governments fell in 1990, 1997 and 1999). Single-party majorities after 2014 reduce it. This is useful for GS-I post-1947 politics and GS-II.