• Parliamentary Committees

  Context: Recently, a panel headed by former Rajya Sabha General Secretary and advisor P. P. K. Ramacharyulu has recommended a number of suggestions for working of Rajya Sabha proceedings.

For Parliamentary Standing Committee

The panel suggested that there should be a dedicated hour during the Rajya Sabha proceedings to discuss the “import and implications” of the reports finalised by Parliamentary Standing Committees.

• Tenure of Parliamentary Committee should be increased from present one year to two years.
• At present the committee do the field visit of 10 days two times in a year. But the panel has suggested it should be increased to 15 days and instead of 2 times in a year, it should increase to 3 times in a year.
• The panel also suggested that reports of committees should be more accessible to the stakeholders and general public.
• The study has suggested streamlining of the secretarial work, including disposing of 75% of the issues by lower and middle level in a ten-layer hierarchy that exists in the secretariat at present.
• Financial Power: The financial power of divisional heads, who hold the rank of Joint Secretary, has been recommended to be increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh with the corresponding increase at the lower levels.

About Parliamentary Committees   ü In any Parliamentary democracy Parliament has broadly two functions, which are: §  Law-making and §  To keep check on executive branch of the government. ü The parliament sits for short period of time and in that period of time a detailed scrutiny can’t be done. Therefore, this task is completed by various committees of Parliament known as Parliamentary Committees. ü The Constitution of India makes a mention of these committees at different places, but it does not mention any specific provisions regarding their composition, tenure, functions, etc. ü All these matters are dealt by the rules of two Houses. Parliamentary Committees   Conditions for Parliamentary Committees a)    It should appoint or elected by the House or nominated by the Speaker/Chairman. b)    It must work under the direction of the Speaker/Chairman. c)     It presents its report to the House or to the Speaker/Chairman and d)   Has a secretariat provided by the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha.   Note- The consultative committees, which also consist of members of Parliament, are not parliamentary committees as they do not fulfill above four conditions.   Classification of Parliamentary Committees ü Parliamentary Committees are of two kinds–Standing Committees and Ad Hoc Committees. Standing Committee are of permanent nature because they are appointed every year or periodically and ü Ad Hoc Committees are temporary and cease to exist on completion of the task assigned to them, e.g., to deliberate on a particular bill. Parliamentary Committees   Constitutional Provisions related to Parliamentary Committees ü Parliamentary committees draw their authority from §  Article 105 (related to privileges of Parliament members) and §  Article 118 (related to Parliament’s authority to make rules for regulating its procedure and conduct of business).

Significance of Parliamentary Committees

• Make business of legislature easy: Given the volume of legislative business, discussing all Bills under the consideration of Parliament in detail on the floor of the House is impossible. Therefore, committees help in detailed discussion on a proposed law.
• Independent of party politics- the meetings of the committees are done in closed door and members are not bound by party whips, which allows them the free hand for a more meaningful exchange of views as against discussions in full and open Houses where grandstanding and party positions invariably take precedence.
• Provision of expertise: While law making gets increasingly complex and newer forms of technology getting introduced, lawmakers cannot infinitely expand their knowledge into ever-expanding areas of human activities. It is through committees that such expertise is drawn into law making.
  

    Parliamentary Committees

Challenges to Parliamentary Committees

• Non-Mandatory to refer bill to committee- Currently, it is not mandatory to refer a Bill to a Committee. But in some Parliamentary systems like the UK, USA all Bills other than Money Bills are automatically referred to Committees. However, in India, it depends on the decision of the Speaker or Chairman, in consultation with the Minister putting forth the Bill, whether a Bill should be referred to a committee.
• Attendance issue of members- On an average only 49% of members were present for meetings of these Committees between the period 2009-2014. Parliamentary Committees hold several meetings to conduct an in-depth analysis of various issues through extensive deliberations among Members. The success of the Committee system depends on the participation of Members in these meetings.
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What is way forward?

Strengthening the role of Parliamentary committees along with the better implementation of given panel recommendations is the way forward to strengthening the democratic functioning of the legislature.                                                                                                                                                                                                              SEE HER

Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022

Bank Fraud Without OTP

Source- The Hindu, The Constitution of India