Governance Now, Sept 16-30, 2011
Going by their recent behaviour, parliamentarians seem to set little store by committees and procedures
When, during Anna Hazare’s indefinite fast at the Ramlila grounds, Team Anna suggested that the Lokpal bill be immediately taken up by parliament for debate and passage, it provoked a huge uproar. The politicians seemed aghast. For the next few days, the nation was lectured on the “supremacy” of parliament and sanctity of the “parliamentary procedure” because, as they pointed out, the bill was pending with the standing committee at that point. Any suggestion to bypass this parliamentary committee, they suggested, was not only unthinkable but decidedly blasphemous. Soon the attack on Team Anna reached a new height and their movement was condemned as “undemocratic”, “unconstitutional” and “anti-parliamentary”, among other things.
In the run-up to the August 16 fiasco – when the 74-year-old Gandhian was picked from Mayur Vihar and lodged in the Tihar – the government had, in fact, dismissed disdainfully Team Anna’s pleas to expedite the process of legislating the Lokpal. They were asked to take their pleas to the standing committee.
How justified was this hullabaloo over the parliamentary procedure and standing committees? Let us take a closer look.
Mandate of standing committee
To start with, the parliamentary standing committees came into being in 1993 for overseeing the functioning of various ministries and departments of the union government and examine bills pertaining to those ministries and departments.
But must each and every bill go to the standing committee before it is debated and passed by parliament? The simple and clear answer is: No. It is entirely at the discretion of the presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to send any bill to the standing committee. The Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of both the houses are unambiguous.
Rule 331H of the Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business of Lok Sabha says, “the Committee shall consider only such bills introduced in either of the houses as are referred to them by the chairman, Rajya Sabha or the speaker” (emphasis added). Exactly the same language has been used in Rule 273 of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States.
And how sacrosanct is a standing committee report on a bill? One answer is that it is not binding on parliament at all.
Rule 331N of Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business of Lok Sabha says, “The report of the standing committees shall have persuasive value and shall be treated as considered advice given by the committees” (emphasis added). The same words are used in the Rajya Sabha rule book (Rule 277).
Second answer is, there are any number of standing committee reports which have been ignored by parliament in the past without a second thought. If we consider the Lokpal bill, there have been three standing committee reports on it so far – submitted to parliament in 1996, 1998 and 2001. The latest bill, ninth one in the past 43 years to be introduced in parliament, has been referred to a standing committee for the fourth time. If you count a couple of times it was sent to the joint select committee in 1968 and 1985, this would be for the sixth time a parliamentary panel will examine this particular bill.
There is more.
The speaker, who sent the latest Lokpal bill to the standing committee, has over-riding powers to suspend any rule. Rule 388 of Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business of Lok Sabha says, “Any member may, with the consent of the speaker, move that any rule may be suspended in its application to a particular motion before the house and if the motion is carried the rule in question shall be suspended for the time being” (emphasis added). The implication of this is that if the speaker wants he or she can use the discretionary power not to refer the Lokpal bill to the standing committee and ask the house to debate and pass it. This has happened in the past in connection with several much more sensitive bills. But more on this later.
Standing committee on Lokpal
Now that the bill has been sent to the standing committee let us see who the members of this committee are (see box 4). Lalu Prasad of the RJD is one. He has been in and out of jail for more than a decade in connection with the fodder scam (worth about Rs 900 crore) and may soon be arrested and sent to jail once more. Amar Singh is another. He is one of the prime accused in the cash-for-vote scam and was sent to the Tihar just as we were going to the press. Manish Tewari is yet another member, who described Anna’s fast as “tyranny of the unelected and unelectable” and then accused Anna to being corrupt “from head to toe”. He then apologised and withdrew his accusation and then withdrew himself from the standing committee too. But his party has decided to continue with him.
The committee is headed by Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Congress spokesman and a lawyer who has a habit of picking up the wrong causes. Recently, he took up the brief for a lottery operator of Kerala but had to withdraw under mounting pressure from his party men in that state. Earlier, he represented Vedanta group in the environment tribunal when the primitive Kondh tribes of Orissa protested against a wholly illegal clearance given for mining bauxite deposits of the Niyamgiri hills in violation of their forest rights. The clearance was later withdrawn by the union government after it was found that the Vedanta had misrepresented facts and that the clearance was indeed in violation of several environment and forest laws and rules.
Can these members be expected to do justice to the anti-corruption mechanism?
Conflict of interest
On December 20, 2010, National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC), a New Delhi-based think tank released a shocking study. It showed a large number of MPs with business interests are not only getting into parliament, but are also getting into the standing committees dealing with subjects of their business interest.
Imagine, MPs running medical education institutes in the standing committee on health; industrialists-turned-legislators sitting in the committees on finance, industry and public accounts (see box 2). Whose interest will they be protecting and promoting – people or their own private interest?
This raises a serious issue of conflict of interest. The Rajya Sabha did create a “register of members’ interest” recently to make members register their “pecuniary interest” but this register was not made available to the public.
Any wonder the standing committee proceedings are not open to media or public viewing? Every time the issue was raised, parliamentarians cut across party-lines to oppose it.
Protecting the corrupt
One of the key elements of the Lokpal bill is about its power to prosecute the corrupt. The central vigilance commission (CVC), touted as an answer to corruption in high places in the 1990s and which has supervisory powers over the CBI, was rendered completely useless because it was made an ‘advisory’ body, without any power to prosecute the corrupt.
While this is not a secret, shocking statistics emerged on August 23, 2011, when a New Delhi-based think tank, Asian Centre for Human Rights, released its report, “The Lokpal debate – lack of accountability, not Anna Hazare’s fast, should be the focus”. The report says the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 has failed because the government simply doesn’t give sanctions to prosecute the corrupt public servants.
The study says, in the past 14 years (between 1996 and 2009), only 1,348 of an astounding 77,925 corruption cases registered and forwarded by the CVC were given sanctions for prosecution. This works out to a mere 1.73 percent of the total. No government in these years, be it the UPA or NDA, was keen to bring to justice the corrupt officials (see box 3). How many actually got to be convicted and punished is a matter of conjecture, the report adds. It would be interesting to watch if the power to prosecute the corrupt is retained in the case of Lokpal by the standing committee and then adopted by parliament.
Scant respect for committees, procedures
Much has been made about parliament’s legal sovereignty and its right to make laws. Just how good it is was laid bare by a 2006 study titled, “The Indian Parliament as an Institution of Accountability”. It was carried out by Devesh Kapur, then associate professor at Harvard, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, then a JNU professor. Published by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, the study says: “The federal government budgets of 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2004 were all passed by parliament with virtually no scrutiny or debate despite the fiscal deficit climbing to alarming levels.”
Did anyone then raise an issue of standing committee or sanctity of parliamentary procedures? No.
A few more examples will remove all doubts. On March 11, 1991, 17 bills were passed by Lok Sabha in a couple of hours (see box 5). What kind of parliamentary oversight would have gone into it is anybody’s guess.
Then again on December 23, 2008, eight bills were passed by Lok Sabha in 17 minutes flat (see box 5). Many of these bills had not been referred to the standing committees. A critical one was that of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2008, which provided forfeiture of property of corrupt public servants. It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 19 and passed on December 22. It is another matter that it lapsed with the 14th Lok Sabha since it was not passed in the upper house.
A few days earlier, on December 16, another important bill which brought to existence the National Investigation Agency (to prevent 26/11-type terror attacks) was introduced in the lower house, which passed it the next day. The upper house passed it a day later. It never went to the standing committee.
It reminds one of the draconian and much abused anti-terror law, POTA, which replaced another draconian and much abused TADA. POTA was brought in by way of an ordinance twice by the BJP-led NDA government. On third attempt, the Rajya Sabha rejected it. The government convened a special joint session of parliament to pass it in March 2002. That legislation too never went to any standing committee.
Talking about the efficacy of standing committees, Kapur and Mehta make some scathing comments. Their study says, “First, it is a simple fact that parliament itself tends to ignore the reports of its committees. Most committee reports are not tabled for deliberation and discussion in parliament at all…Second, the internal composition of parliamentary committees militates against their becoming more effective agents at disciplining the executive and contributing to legislative business”.
While admitting that despite limitations the standing committees can provide disciplinary oversight of government, the report adds, “However, by paying little heed to the numerous CAG reports highlighting all manner of problems, parliament has crippled a critical tool in enforcing accountability. Consequently, the CAG’s strictures have little import”.
One more point.
Guillotined
After budgets are presented, standing committees examine demands for grants of the ministries and departments, after which it is debated and voted in the Lok Sabha. Demands not discussed by the Lok Sabha are put to ‘guillotine’ on the last day of the budget session for immediate disposal. Here are some shocking details about the last (14th) Lok Sabha, taken from the Lok Sabha’s website.
Demands for grants of 52 ministries/departments for the financial year 2004-5, in the form of bills, were guillotined. The figure for 2005-6 stood at 48 bills; for 2006-7, 50 bills; for 2007-8, 49 bills and for 2008-9, 51 bills.
With so much respect in evidence, talks of the parliament’s “supremacy” and sanctity of “procedure” by the parliamentarians and their pet intellectuals don’t really mean much. Or does it? n
Box 1
How bill becomes law
A bill, which is a draft of the proposed legislation, passes through three stages before it is submitted to the president for assent. After the president’s assent, it is notified in the gazette and becomes a law. These stages that the bill passes through are called “three readings” of the bill.
Three readings of the bill: In the first reading, a bill is just “introduced” in either of the houses, except when it is opposed on the grounds of constitutionality or jurisdiction and a statement can be made by the member opposing it but no debate takes place.
The second reading consists of two stages. The first stage constitutes discussion on the principles of the bill and its provisions generally on any three motions – that the bill be taken into consideration; or that it may be referred to a parliamentary committee (at this stage the standing committee comes in) or that the bill be circulated for eliciting public opinion. The second stage consists of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. The standing committee’s recommendations come in here and is either accepted or rejected in part or in toto. Amendments can be moved at this stage. Each amendment and clause is put to the vote. The amendments become part of the bill if voted in favour.
The third reading is for passing the bill, as amended. A general debate takes place at this stage. Only formal, verbal or consequential amendments are allowed at this stage.
After a bill is passed by one house it is sent to the other house and the process is repeated.
Once cleared by both the houses, the bill is sent to the president. The bill becomes law after the president’s assent.
Box 2
Conflict of Interest
Details from the report of the National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC), New Delhi-based think tank, that indentified MPs with conflicting interests and was released on Dec 20, 2010 (the term of the committees was to last till Aug 31, 2011):
Standing committee on health
At least three members run medical education institutions - Prabhakar B Kore, BJP MP from Karnataka who is chairman of the Karnataka Lingayat Education Society running 18 medical science institutions; MAM Ramaswamy of JD(S), Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, who is pro-chancellor of Annamalai University running medical institutions; and Wardha’s Cong MP Datta Raghobaji Meghe, who is president of Radhikabai Meghe Memorial Medical Trust managing a deemed university, the Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences.
Standing committee on finance
The members are virtually who’s who of industry: Venture capitalist Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Ind) from Karnataka, business magnate Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Maharashtra-based Vijay Darda (Cong), Sambasiva Rayapati and industrialist Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (Cong) from Andhra Pradesh.
Standing committee on industry
The members include UP businessman Akhilesh Das (BSP) as chairman; perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal (AUDF) of Assam and Andhra Pradesh textile manufacturer Gireesh Kumar Sanghi (Cong). In all, 9 out of 26 are from business and industry.
Public Accounts Committee
It has members like industrialist Navin Jindal (Cong), Andhra Pradesh-based contractor Kavuri Sambasiva Rao (Cong) and Tamil Nadu educationist M Thambi Durai (AIADMK).
Box 3
Governments love the Corrupt
Last month, prime minister Manmohan Singh told parliament, “Our government is committed to fight against corruption.” Does he really mean it? The records seem to suggest otherwise.
The latest annual report of the apex anti-corruption watchdog, the central vigilance commission (CVC) says that by June 30, 2011, “44 cases were pending sanction for prosecution from various ministries and departments of the Government of India.” Some of these are pending for more than two years, the report points out.
A few examples of officers against whom corruption charges have been registered but prosecution sanction is pending: Baldev Singh Sandhu, commissioner of income tax, Ahmedabad; Sanjay Tripathi, joint commissioner of income tax, Bangalaore and Mumbai; Col F B Singh, joint director, ministry of defence and Manoj Malviya, additional commissioner, civil aviation.
But more shocking revelations have come from the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR). In its report, “The Lokpal debate- lack of accountability, not Anna Hazare’s fast”, released on August 23, 2011, ACHR says successive union governments have protected the corrupt public servants in the past 14 years.
The report says, between 1996 and 2009, CVC registered 77,925 cases of corruption against public servants and sought permission for prosecution. But permission was granted only in 1,348 cases – a mere 1.73 percent of the registered cases.
All the governments in these 14 years – be it the United Front government, the NDA or the UPA – have been equally protective of the corrupt.
The report also points at a disturbing trend. The number of corruption cases being registered by the CBI is falling over the years. In 1990, CBI registered 1,116 cases which came down to a mere 731 cases in 2010. It goes on to comment, “What is disconcerting is the reduction in the number of cases registered by the CBI despite the common knowledge of increasing corruption, both in numbers and size, in the post-liberalisation period.”
Box 4
Members of Standing Committee on Lokpal
Abhishek Manu Singhvi (Cong), Parimal Nathwani (Ind), Shantaram Naik (Cong), Ram Vilas Paswan (LJSP), Amar Singh (Ind), Ram Jethmalani (BJP), Balavant alias Bal Apte (BJP), O T Lepcha (SDF), Chandresh Kumari (Cong), Lalu Prasad (RJD), D B Chandre Gowda (BJP), Shailendra Kumar (SP), Kirodi Lal Meena (Ind), Harin Pathak (BJP), N.S.V. Chitthan (Cong), Deepa Dashmunsi (Cong), Jyoti Dhurve (BJP), Monazir Hassan (JD(U)), Devji M Patel (BJP), S Semmalai (AIADMK), Vijay Bahadur Singh (BSP), Prabha Kishore Taviad (Cong),Manish Tewari (Cong), R Thamaraiselvan (DMK), P T Thomas (Cong) and Meenakshi Natrajan (Cong). (As on 5.9.11)
Box 5
17 bills in 2 hours
Following bills passed in Lok Sabha in two hours on March 11, 1991
1. The Appropriation (Railways) Vote on Account Bill, 1991
2. The Appropriation (Railways) Bill, 1991
3. The Appropriation (Railways) No 2 Bill
4. The Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
5. The Appropriation (No 2) Bill
6. The Appropriation (No 3) Bill, 1991
7. The Finance Bill, 1991
8. The Punjab Appropriation Bill, 1991
9. The Assam Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
10. The Assam Appropriation (No 2) Bill, 1991
11. The Tamil Nadu Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
12. The Tamil Nadu Appropriation Bill, 1991
13. The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
14. The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation (No 2) Bill, 1991
15. The Pondicherry Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
16. The Constitution (75th Amendment) Bill, 1991
17. The Salary, Allownaces and pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Bill, 1991
Eight bills in 17 minutes
1. The Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Bill, 2008
2. The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2008
3. The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Amendment Bill, 2008
4. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2008
5. The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) UT Order (Amendment) Bill, 2007
6. The South Asian University Bill, 2008
7. The Code of Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill, 2006
8. The Collection of Statistics Bill, 2007.
Going by their recent behaviour, parliamentarians seem to set little store by committees and procedures
When, during Anna Hazare’s indefinite fast at the Ramlila grounds, Team Anna suggested that the Lokpal bill be immediately taken up by parliament for debate and passage, it provoked a huge uproar. The politicians seemed aghast. For the next few days, the nation was lectured on the “supremacy” of parliament and sanctity of the “parliamentary procedure” because, as they pointed out, the bill was pending with the standing committee at that point. Any suggestion to bypass this parliamentary committee, they suggested, was not only unthinkable but decidedly blasphemous. Soon the attack on Team Anna reached a new height and their movement was condemned as “undemocratic”, “unconstitutional” and “anti-parliamentary”, among other things.
In the run-up to the August 16 fiasco – when the 74-year-old Gandhian was picked from Mayur Vihar and lodged in the Tihar – the government had, in fact, dismissed disdainfully Team Anna’s pleas to expedite the process of legislating the Lokpal. They were asked to take their pleas to the standing committee.
How justified was this hullabaloo over the parliamentary procedure and standing committees? Let us take a closer look.
Mandate of standing committee
To start with, the parliamentary standing committees came into being in 1993 for overseeing the functioning of various ministries and departments of the union government and examine bills pertaining to those ministries and departments.
But must each and every bill go to the standing committee before it is debated and passed by parliament? The simple and clear answer is: No. It is entirely at the discretion of the presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to send any bill to the standing committee. The Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of both the houses are unambiguous.
Rule 331H of the Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business of Lok Sabha says, “the Committee shall consider only such bills introduced in either of the houses as are referred to them by the chairman, Rajya Sabha or the speaker” (emphasis added). Exactly the same language has been used in Rule 273 of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States.
And how sacrosanct is a standing committee report on a bill? One answer is that it is not binding on parliament at all.
Rule 331N of Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business of Lok Sabha says, “The report of the standing committees shall have persuasive value and shall be treated as considered advice given by the committees” (emphasis added). The same words are used in the Rajya Sabha rule book (Rule 277).
Second answer is, there are any number of standing committee reports which have been ignored by parliament in the past without a second thought. If we consider the Lokpal bill, there have been three standing committee reports on it so far – submitted to parliament in 1996, 1998 and 2001. The latest bill, ninth one in the past 43 years to be introduced in parliament, has been referred to a standing committee for the fourth time. If you count a couple of times it was sent to the joint select committee in 1968 and 1985, this would be for the sixth time a parliamentary panel will examine this particular bill.
There is more.
The speaker, who sent the latest Lokpal bill to the standing committee, has over-riding powers to suspend any rule. Rule 388 of Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business of Lok Sabha says, “Any member may, with the consent of the speaker, move that any rule may be suspended in its application to a particular motion before the house and if the motion is carried the rule in question shall be suspended for the time being” (emphasis added). The implication of this is that if the speaker wants he or she can use the discretionary power not to refer the Lokpal bill to the standing committee and ask the house to debate and pass it. This has happened in the past in connection with several much more sensitive bills. But more on this later.
Standing committee on Lokpal
Now that the bill has been sent to the standing committee let us see who the members of this committee are (see box 4). Lalu Prasad of the RJD is one. He has been in and out of jail for more than a decade in connection with the fodder scam (worth about Rs 900 crore) and may soon be arrested and sent to jail once more. Amar Singh is another. He is one of the prime accused in the cash-for-vote scam and was sent to the Tihar just as we were going to the press. Manish Tewari is yet another member, who described Anna’s fast as “tyranny of the unelected and unelectable” and then accused Anna to being corrupt “from head to toe”. He then apologised and withdrew his accusation and then withdrew himself from the standing committee too. But his party has decided to continue with him.
The committee is headed by Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Congress spokesman and a lawyer who has a habit of picking up the wrong causes. Recently, he took up the brief for a lottery operator of Kerala but had to withdraw under mounting pressure from his party men in that state. Earlier, he represented Vedanta group in the environment tribunal when the primitive Kondh tribes of Orissa protested against a wholly illegal clearance given for mining bauxite deposits of the Niyamgiri hills in violation of their forest rights. The clearance was later withdrawn by the union government after it was found that the Vedanta had misrepresented facts and that the clearance was indeed in violation of several environment and forest laws and rules.
Can these members be expected to do justice to the anti-corruption mechanism?
Conflict of interest
On December 20, 2010, National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC), a New Delhi-based think tank released a shocking study. It showed a large number of MPs with business interests are not only getting into parliament, but are also getting into the standing committees dealing with subjects of their business interest.
Imagine, MPs running medical education institutes in the standing committee on health; industrialists-turned-legislators sitting in the committees on finance, industry and public accounts (see box 2). Whose interest will they be protecting and promoting – people or their own private interest?
This raises a serious issue of conflict of interest. The Rajya Sabha did create a “register of members’ interest” recently to make members register their “pecuniary interest” but this register was not made available to the public.
Any wonder the standing committee proceedings are not open to media or public viewing? Every time the issue was raised, parliamentarians cut across party-lines to oppose it.
Protecting the corrupt
One of the key elements of the Lokpal bill is about its power to prosecute the corrupt. The central vigilance commission (CVC), touted as an answer to corruption in high places in the 1990s and which has supervisory powers over the CBI, was rendered completely useless because it was made an ‘advisory’ body, without any power to prosecute the corrupt.
While this is not a secret, shocking statistics emerged on August 23, 2011, when a New Delhi-based think tank, Asian Centre for Human Rights, released its report, “The Lokpal debate – lack of accountability, not Anna Hazare’s fast, should be the focus”. The report says the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 has failed because the government simply doesn’t give sanctions to prosecute the corrupt public servants.
The study says, in the past 14 years (between 1996 and 2009), only 1,348 of an astounding 77,925 corruption cases registered and forwarded by the CVC were given sanctions for prosecution. This works out to a mere 1.73 percent of the total. No government in these years, be it the UPA or NDA, was keen to bring to justice the corrupt officials (see box 3). How many actually got to be convicted and punished is a matter of conjecture, the report adds. It would be interesting to watch if the power to prosecute the corrupt is retained in the case of Lokpal by the standing committee and then adopted by parliament.
Scant respect for committees, procedures
Much has been made about parliament’s legal sovereignty and its right to make laws. Just how good it is was laid bare by a 2006 study titled, “The Indian Parliament as an Institution of Accountability”. It was carried out by Devesh Kapur, then associate professor at Harvard, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, then a JNU professor. Published by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, the study says: “The federal government budgets of 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2004 were all passed by parliament with virtually no scrutiny or debate despite the fiscal deficit climbing to alarming levels.”
Did anyone then raise an issue of standing committee or sanctity of parliamentary procedures? No.
A few more examples will remove all doubts. On March 11, 1991, 17 bills were passed by Lok Sabha in a couple of hours (see box 5). What kind of parliamentary oversight would have gone into it is anybody’s guess.
Then again on December 23, 2008, eight bills were passed by Lok Sabha in 17 minutes flat (see box 5). Many of these bills had not been referred to the standing committees. A critical one was that of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2008, which provided forfeiture of property of corrupt public servants. It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 19 and passed on December 22. It is another matter that it lapsed with the 14th Lok Sabha since it was not passed in the upper house.
A few days earlier, on December 16, another important bill which brought to existence the National Investigation Agency (to prevent 26/11-type terror attacks) was introduced in the lower house, which passed it the next day. The upper house passed it a day later. It never went to the standing committee.
It reminds one of the draconian and much abused anti-terror law, POTA, which replaced another draconian and much abused TADA. POTA was brought in by way of an ordinance twice by the BJP-led NDA government. On third attempt, the Rajya Sabha rejected it. The government convened a special joint session of parliament to pass it in March 2002. That legislation too never went to any standing committee.
Talking about the efficacy of standing committees, Kapur and Mehta make some scathing comments. Their study says, “First, it is a simple fact that parliament itself tends to ignore the reports of its committees. Most committee reports are not tabled for deliberation and discussion in parliament at all…Second, the internal composition of parliamentary committees militates against their becoming more effective agents at disciplining the executive and contributing to legislative business”.
While admitting that despite limitations the standing committees can provide disciplinary oversight of government, the report adds, “However, by paying little heed to the numerous CAG reports highlighting all manner of problems, parliament has crippled a critical tool in enforcing accountability. Consequently, the CAG’s strictures have little import”.
One more point.
Guillotined
After budgets are presented, standing committees examine demands for grants of the ministries and departments, after which it is debated and voted in the Lok Sabha. Demands not discussed by the Lok Sabha are put to ‘guillotine’ on the last day of the budget session for immediate disposal. Here are some shocking details about the last (14th) Lok Sabha, taken from the Lok Sabha’s website.
Demands for grants of 52 ministries/departments for the financial year 2004-5, in the form of bills, were guillotined. The figure for 2005-6 stood at 48 bills; for 2006-7, 50 bills; for 2007-8, 49 bills and for 2008-9, 51 bills.
With so much respect in evidence, talks of the parliament’s “supremacy” and sanctity of “procedure” by the parliamentarians and their pet intellectuals don’t really mean much. Or does it? n
Box 1
How bill becomes law
A bill, which is a draft of the proposed legislation, passes through three stages before it is submitted to the president for assent. After the president’s assent, it is notified in the gazette and becomes a law. These stages that the bill passes through are called “three readings” of the bill.
Three readings of the bill: In the first reading, a bill is just “introduced” in either of the houses, except when it is opposed on the grounds of constitutionality or jurisdiction and a statement can be made by the member opposing it but no debate takes place.
The second reading consists of two stages. The first stage constitutes discussion on the principles of the bill and its provisions generally on any three motions – that the bill be taken into consideration; or that it may be referred to a parliamentary committee (at this stage the standing committee comes in) or that the bill be circulated for eliciting public opinion. The second stage consists of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. The standing committee’s recommendations come in here and is either accepted or rejected in part or in toto. Amendments can be moved at this stage. Each amendment and clause is put to the vote. The amendments become part of the bill if voted in favour.
The third reading is for passing the bill, as amended. A general debate takes place at this stage. Only formal, verbal or consequential amendments are allowed at this stage.
After a bill is passed by one house it is sent to the other house and the process is repeated.
Once cleared by both the houses, the bill is sent to the president. The bill becomes law after the president’s assent.
Box 2
Conflict of Interest
Details from the report of the National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC), New Delhi-based think tank, that indentified MPs with conflicting interests and was released on Dec 20, 2010 (the term of the committees was to last till Aug 31, 2011):
Standing committee on health
At least three members run medical education institutions - Prabhakar B Kore, BJP MP from Karnataka who is chairman of the Karnataka Lingayat Education Society running 18 medical science institutions; MAM Ramaswamy of JD(S), Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, who is pro-chancellor of Annamalai University running medical institutions; and Wardha’s Cong MP Datta Raghobaji Meghe, who is president of Radhikabai Meghe Memorial Medical Trust managing a deemed university, the Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences.
Standing committee on finance
The members are virtually who’s who of industry: Venture capitalist Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Ind) from Karnataka, business magnate Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Maharashtra-based Vijay Darda (Cong), Sambasiva Rayapati and industrialist Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (Cong) from Andhra Pradesh.
Standing committee on industry
The members include UP businessman Akhilesh Das (BSP) as chairman; perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal (AUDF) of Assam and Andhra Pradesh textile manufacturer Gireesh Kumar Sanghi (Cong). In all, 9 out of 26 are from business and industry.
Public Accounts Committee
It has members like industrialist Navin Jindal (Cong), Andhra Pradesh-based contractor Kavuri Sambasiva Rao (Cong) and Tamil Nadu educationist M Thambi Durai (AIADMK).
Box 3
Governments love the Corrupt
Last month, prime minister Manmohan Singh told parliament, “Our government is committed to fight against corruption.” Does he really mean it? The records seem to suggest otherwise.
The latest annual report of the apex anti-corruption watchdog, the central vigilance commission (CVC) says that by June 30, 2011, “44 cases were pending sanction for prosecution from various ministries and departments of the Government of India.” Some of these are pending for more than two years, the report points out.
A few examples of officers against whom corruption charges have been registered but prosecution sanction is pending: Baldev Singh Sandhu, commissioner of income tax, Ahmedabad; Sanjay Tripathi, joint commissioner of income tax, Bangalaore and Mumbai; Col F B Singh, joint director, ministry of defence and Manoj Malviya, additional commissioner, civil aviation.
But more shocking revelations have come from the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR). In its report, “The Lokpal debate- lack of accountability, not Anna Hazare’s fast”, released on August 23, 2011, ACHR says successive union governments have protected the corrupt public servants in the past 14 years.
The report says, between 1996 and 2009, CVC registered 77,925 cases of corruption against public servants and sought permission for prosecution. But permission was granted only in 1,348 cases – a mere 1.73 percent of the registered cases.
All the governments in these 14 years – be it the United Front government, the NDA or the UPA – have been equally protective of the corrupt.
The report also points at a disturbing trend. The number of corruption cases being registered by the CBI is falling over the years. In 1990, CBI registered 1,116 cases which came down to a mere 731 cases in 2010. It goes on to comment, “What is disconcerting is the reduction in the number of cases registered by the CBI despite the common knowledge of increasing corruption, both in numbers and size, in the post-liberalisation period.”
Box 4
Members of Standing Committee on Lokpal
Abhishek Manu Singhvi (Cong), Parimal Nathwani (Ind), Shantaram Naik (Cong), Ram Vilas Paswan (LJSP), Amar Singh (Ind), Ram Jethmalani (BJP), Balavant alias Bal Apte (BJP), O T Lepcha (SDF), Chandresh Kumari (Cong), Lalu Prasad (RJD), D B Chandre Gowda (BJP), Shailendra Kumar (SP), Kirodi Lal Meena (Ind), Harin Pathak (BJP), N.S.V. Chitthan (Cong), Deepa Dashmunsi (Cong), Jyoti Dhurve (BJP), Monazir Hassan (JD(U)), Devji M Patel (BJP), S Semmalai (AIADMK), Vijay Bahadur Singh (BSP), Prabha Kishore Taviad (Cong),Manish Tewari (Cong), R Thamaraiselvan (DMK), P T Thomas (Cong) and Meenakshi Natrajan (Cong). (As on 5.9.11)
Box 5
17 bills in 2 hours
Following bills passed in Lok Sabha in two hours on March 11, 1991
1. The Appropriation (Railways) Vote on Account Bill, 1991
2. The Appropriation (Railways) Bill, 1991
3. The Appropriation (Railways) No 2 Bill
4. The Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
5. The Appropriation (No 2) Bill
6. The Appropriation (No 3) Bill, 1991
7. The Finance Bill, 1991
8. The Punjab Appropriation Bill, 1991
9. The Assam Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
10. The Assam Appropriation (No 2) Bill, 1991
11. The Tamil Nadu Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
12. The Tamil Nadu Appropriation Bill, 1991
13. The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
14. The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation (No 2) Bill, 1991
15. The Pondicherry Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 1991
16. The Constitution (75th Amendment) Bill, 1991
17. The Salary, Allownaces and pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Bill, 1991
Eight bills in 17 minutes
1. The Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Bill, 2008
2. The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2008
3. The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Amendment Bill, 2008
4. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2008
5. The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) UT Order (Amendment) Bill, 2007
6. The South Asian University Bill, 2008
7. The Code of Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill, 2006
8. The Collection of Statistics Bill, 2007.
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