Reforming parliamentary procedure

Detail

1. The diagnosis: why reform is needed

Fewer sittings. A sitting is one day on which a House meets.

• The 1st Lok Sabha (1952–57) held 677 sittings. (NCERT: Class 8 sittings table)
• The 17th Lok Sabha (2019–24) held only 274 sittings. Only four earlier Lok Sabhas sat fewer times, and all four were dissolved before they finished their five-year term [2].
• The Constitution sets no minimum number of days. Article 85 only says that no more than six months may pass between two sessions. The government decides the actual calendar.

Disruption eats up working time. Productivity means the share of scheduled time that a House actually works.

• Rajya Sabha, 2018: productivity fell to 35.75%. (NCERT: Class 8)
• Monsoon Session 2025 (21 July–21 August 2025): the Lok Sabha worked 29% and the Rajya Sabha 34% of scheduled time. About two-thirds of planned time was lost to disruption [3].
• In the same session, Question Hour ran for only 23% of its scheduled time in the Lok Sabha and 6% in the Rajya Sabha [3]. Question Hour is the first hour of a sitting, when ministers must answer MPs' questions.

Other symptoms

• Question Hour hollowed out: it is often the first casualty of a disruption, so the daily test of ministers is lost.
• Bills rushed through:
• In the 17th Lok Sabha, 58% of bills were passed within two weeks of introduction [2].

• Only 16% of bills were sent to committees, lower than in each of the three Lok Sabhas before it [2].

• Budget guillotine:

• The guillotine is used on the last day set aside for demands for grants. The Speaker puts all remaining demands to vote together, without any discussion.

• About 80% of budget spending is passed this way.

• Deputy Speaker vacant since 2019. Article 93 says the Lok Sabha "shall, as soon as may be" choose a Deputy Speaker. No time limit is set, and the post stayed empty through the whole 17th Lok Sabha.

• Private members' business dropped. These are bills and resolutions moved by MPs who are not ministers. They are usually taken up on Friday afternoons, and that time is often given up.
• State assemblies sit even less:
• On average, state assemblies met for 24 days in 2025 and 21 days in 2024 [4].

• The average has not gone above 30 days a year in the last seven years [4].

• Quorum problems: quorum is the minimum number of members needed for a valid sitting. Under Article 100(3), it is one-tenth of the total membership of a House. (NCERT: Class 11 notes that sessions have shrunk and that quorum is often missing.)

Classroom debate. Class 11 (Exercise 5) asks students to weigh three remedies:

• longer sessions;
• compulsory attendance;
• penalties for members who interrupt the House.

2. Proposals: more time and a fixed calendar

• Minimum sitting days: a legal floor on how many days each House must meet every year.

• The NCRWC (National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2002) proposed at least 120 days a year for the Lok Sabha and 100 days for the Rajya Sabha.

• Fixed annual calendar: session dates would be announced at the start of each year. The government could then not shorten or delay sessions for political convenience.

3. Proposals: better scrutiny

Committees

• Departmentally related standing committees (DRSCs):
• These are permanent committees, each watching one or more ministries. They began in 1993, and there are now 24 (16 under the Lok Sabha and 8 under the Rajya Sabha).

• Each has 31 members: 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.

• Routine referral: at present, the Speaker or Chairman decides whether a bill goes to a committee. Reformers want every major bill to be referred as a rule.

• Two-year DRSC terms: members now serve for one year. A longer term would let them build expertise.

Budget

• DRSCs already examine the demands for grants during the budget recess. Reformers want this scrutiny to count before the vote, through real committee reports that the House debates.
• Fewer demands should be guillotined.

Voting and debate

• Recorded votes: many bills now pass by voice vote, where members call out "aye" or "no" and the presiding officer judges the result. A recorded vote (a division) notes how each member voted. Reformers want recorded votes on major bills.
• Opposition days: days on which the opposition sets the agenda, on the Westminster model (the British practice).
• Prime Minister's question time: a fixed weekly slot in which the Prime Minister answers questions directly.

Research and consultation

• Pre-legislative consultation: publishing a draft bill for public comment before it is introduced. The Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014 asks for at least 30 days of public comment, but this is often skipped.
• Legislative impact assessment: studying the likely costs and effects of a law before passing it, and reviewing it after it is passed.
• Research support for MPs: the Parliament Library and Reference service, LAMP fellows (research assistants placed with MPs under PRS's programme) and PRS briefs.

4. Proposals: the presiding officers

• Elect the Deputy Speaker promptly (Article 93). By convention, the post often goes to the opposition.
• Make the Speaker neutral: for example, by the British convention that a Speaker gives up party ties and is not opposed at the next election.
• Independent tribunal for defection cases:
• Under the Tenth Schedule (52nd Amendment, 1985), the Speaker or Chairman decides whether a member who changed parties is disqualified. This is the anti-defection law.
• Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur (2020): the Supreme Court said the Speaker should usually decide disqualification petitions within three months.
• The Court also asked Parliament to consider giving these cases to a permanent independent tribunal instead of the Speaker.

5. Proposals: rights and rules

Discipline vs opposition rights

• Rule 374A (Lok Sabha Rules, added 2001):
• It covers grave disorder, such as members coming into the Well of the House or shouting slogans.

• The member named by the Speaker is suspended automatically for five sittings in a row or the rest of the session, whichever is shorter.

• Ashish Shelar v. Maharashtra Legislative Assembly (2022):

• The Supreme Court struck down the one-year suspension of 12 MLAs.

• It said a suspension longer than the remaining session was irrational and unconstitutional, and that it punished the voters of those constituencies.

• The lesson: the House needs order, but discipline must not become a tool to silence the opposition.

Codified privileges

• Parliamentary privileges are special rights of MPs and the House, such as freedom of speech in the House (Article 105; Article 194 for states).
• Their full scope is still not written down in a law. Codifying them would make their limits clear and open to court review.

Money bills

• A money bill (Article 110) is a bill only about taxes, government borrowing or spending. The Rajya Sabha cannot amend it and can delay it for only 14 days. The Speaker's certificate that a bill is a money bill is final.
• Puttaswamy (Aadhaar, 2018) upheld the Aadhaar Act as a money bill. Rojer Mathew (2019) doubted that view and sent the question to a larger (seven-judge) bench.
• A settled test would stop the government from using the money-bill route to bypass the Rajya Sabha.

Rule-making power

• Each House makes its own Rules of Procedure under Article 118 (Article 208 for states). Most of these reforms can therefore be made by changing the rules, without amending the Constitution.

6. Technology and openness

Live broadcasting

• Sansad TV (2021) merged Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV into one channel.

National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA)

• What it is:
• A mission-mode project of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs under Digital India. A mission-mode project is a government digital project with set targets and timelines.

• It is built on the theme "One Nation, One Application": one common software platform to make all 37 state and UT legislatures paperless [5].

• Progress:

• By December 2025, 28 state and UT legislatures had signed MoUs to adopt NeVA, and 20 had become fully digital Houses [5].

• The West Bengal Legislative Assembly became the 33rd legislature to join, in June 2026 [6].

• Features:

• It computerises legislature offices and trains members and staff.
• It uses Bhashini AI tools for text translation and speech-to-text, so members can work in many Indian languages [7].

Digital records

• Debates, questions and committee reports are published online on the Sansad portals.

7. The limits of reform

• Procedure works only when the majority accepts that it must still justify itself, and the opposition accepts that it must let the House work.
• Class 11 says effective control over the executive needs three things:
• adequate time;
• interested members;

• a willingness to compromise.

• Rules cannot make up for missing political will. A fixed calendar or more committee referrals still need the government and the opposition to cooperate.

Prelims Hooks

• NCRWC (2002): at least 120 sitting days a year for the Lok Sabha and 100 for the Rajya Sabha. The trap is to swap the two numbers.
• Article 85: the gap between two sessions must be less than six months. The Constitution sets no minimum number of sitting days.
• Article 93: the Lok Sabha must elect a Deputy Speaker "as soon as may be". No time limit is fixed, and the post has been vacant since 2019.
• Keisham Meghachandra Singh (2020): the Speaker should decide Tenth Schedule disqualification petitions within three months, and the Court suggested an independent tribunal.
• Ashish Shelar (2022): the Supreme Court struck down the one-year suspension of 12 Maharashtra MLAs, because suspension cannot go beyond the session.
• Rule 374A: automatic suspension for five sittings in a row or the rest of the session, whichever is shorter.
• DRSCs (1993): 24 committees (16 Lok Sabha, 8 Rajya Sabha), 31 members each, with a one-year term.
• 17th Lok Sabha: 274 sittings and only 16% of bills sent to committees [2].
• NeVA: a Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs project under Digital India ("One Nation, One Application") for state legislatures, not Parliament [5].
• Sansad TV (2021) merged Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV.

Mains Points

• The decline of deliberation:
• Sittings fell from 677 in the 1st Lok Sabha to 274 in the 17th. In the 17th Lok Sabha, 58% of bills passed within two weeks and only 16% went to committees.
• In the Monsoon Session 2025, the Lok Sabha worked only 29% of its scheduled time.

• Together these weaken collective responsibility (the whole council of ministers answers to the Lok Sabha). A fixed calendar, minimum sitting days and compulsory committee referral are the main fixes.

• Neutral presiding officers:

• The Deputy Speaker's post has been vacant since 2019, and defection petitions are often left undecided.
• The 2020 tribunal suggestion in Keisham Meghachandra would take defection cases away from the Speaker. Ashish Shelar (2022) limits how far the House can punish members.

• Balancing order in the House with the opposition's rights is the core trade-off.

• Financial control:

• About 80% of budget demands are guillotined, and the money-bill route is used to bypass the Rajya Sabha.

• Reformers propose committee scrutiny of the budget before the vote, a settled money-bill test from the larger bench, and real pre-legislative consultation.

• Limits of technology:

• NeVA and Sansad TV improve openness, and 20 legislatures were fully digital by December 2025.
• But openness cannot replace political will. Class 11 says control needs time, interested members and a willingness to compromise.