Uproar in Parliament | Gist of Rajya Sabha TV / RSTV (now Sansad TV) - UPSC PDF Download

Context

Two weeks of the Monsoon session of Parliament washed out due to repeated disruptions forcing adjournments.

Highlights of the Discussion

• The administration gave the election of the President and Vice President of India top precedence over other routine work.
• The potential to hold the administration accountable and to receive clarification on a number of topics, including the GST and inflation, is being lost by the opposition parties.
• the various parties in both houses' growing lack of coordination and collaboration.
• What an inconvenience and a waste of time and money these disruptions are.
• worries about the quality of bills approved without sufficient parliamentary deliberation.

Reasons behind Disruptions?

• Opposition parties’ request for a debate on the price rise and the new GST rates on the packaged food items since the day session started have not been allowed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
• It is also seeking withdrawal of the suspension of nearly two dozen MPs before going ahead with the business.
• An unresponsive attitude of the government and the retaliatory posture of the treasury benches.
• Opposition parties not adhering to parliamentary norms and disciplining their members.

Larger Implications of Unproductive Sessions

• Due to repeated disruptions forcing adjournments, there has been very little business till date during the session.
• In 2012,  Rs 2.5 lakh was spent every minute for running Parliament during sessions. This number will be much higher now. Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha run for an average of  80 days throughout the year, and each day consists of nearly six hours of business.
• The curtailment of question hour and zero hour undermines the principle of parliamentary oversight over the executive.
• These disruptions result in the passage of bills without qualitative debates and deliberations.
• If these disruptions continue, it might result in the intervention of the judiciary which goes against the doctrine of separation of powers.

Way Forward

• Article 105 deals with the powers, privileges, etc, of Parliament, its members, and committees while Article 194 protects the privileges and powers of the houses of the legislature, their members, and committees in the states.
  • Parliament has the privilege to initiate contempt procedures against disrupting members.
• Solutions have to emerge from within the system – Parliament forms its own rules and regulations, it is up to the members to observe those rules and regulations for the effective functioning of the legislative bodies.
  • Parliament has to come up with internal checks and balances at both the individual level and the party level.
• Proportional penalties can be imposed on repeated disruptors.
• A Parliament disruption index can be formulated on which automatic suspension of disruptors can be enforced.
• There should be an increase in the working days of Parliament.

Conclusion

Constant disruption is becoming a new norm in parliamentary proceedings which widens the trust deficit between the parties. This trend is bad for a healthy democracy and a dent in the fairness of the Parliamentary system.