:: P.C. Alexander

Raising a question on Question Hour

By Dr P.C. Alexander

In a democracy, Parliament has three important functions — to make laws, to be a forum for deliberations on important issues of governance and to enforce accountability of the executive to the people. Constitutional authorities such as Sir William Blackstone consider the law-making powers of Parliament as the true index of parliamentary sovereignty. Blackstone, in his expressive style, states that the Parliament has "sovereign and uncontrollable authority in making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations, ecclesiastical, or temporal, civil, military, maritime, or criminal". This type of sovereignty is certainly not true of the British Parliament any more.

Several restrictions have come into force that affect the sovereignty of the British Parliament in law-making particularly after Britain’s accession to the European Union.

Law-making powers of the Indian Parliament have undergone far more serious restrictions after the interpretations given by the Supreme Court on issues like the fundamental rights of citizens and the basic structure of the Constitution. However the role of Parliament as the deliberative body or in enforcing accountability of the executive has not suffered erosion by any judicial pronouncements or constitutional amendments. The only limitations on such roles are what the Parliament has brought on itself by its own acts of omission or commission. The most serious of Parliament’s self-inflicted limitations is the drastic reduction in the number of days it chooses to work in a year. The number of days the Lok Sabha worked in 2007 was only 66 as against the 144 days of work that Britain’s House of Commons worked during the same year. The most serious loss because of this large number of "non-working days" has been for the MPs themselves who could not get adequate opportunities for in-depth discussions on important issues of governance, or for the exercise of their right to enforce accountability of ministers through questions in Parliament.

Accountability in a parliamentary democracy does not mean merely ensuring that the council of ministers retains its majority in the House. Continued support of the majority is, no doubt, very important for accountability, but accountability goes beyond confidence motions and approval of money bills. It is a day-to-day exercise of continuing assessment of the performance of ministers through questions from the floor of the House. It is because of the importance of this right that a fixed time is set apart on every working day for questions by members of the legislature. However, the importance of Question Hour does not appear to be fully appreciated by all members and we come across the strange demand from one section of the House or the other for suspension of Question Hour in order to discuss other issues which they consider most important.

Such demands are often pressed through noisy demonstrations from the well of the House as soon as the presiding officer takes his seat and calls for questions approved for the day. Often, members persist with their demand for suspension of Question Hour even when the presiding officer agrees that a discussion of the issue raised will be allowed afterwards. The House is frequently adjourned in the expectation that the clamouring members can be persuaded to give up their demand. But, often, adjournment is for the day. An entire day is lost for the transaction of scheduled business. This is not a new development in the present House; it has happened when those now on the Treasury benches were in the Opposition, and it threatens to become a regular feature of the working of legislatures in India.

Question Hour is an opportunity to focus attention on lapses in implementation and also offer suggestions. With the Right to Information legislation, every citizen in the country, including the MP, can secure information on matters of governance. Questions, of course, go far beyond the collection of information and are aimed at enabling government to take corrective action in implementation of projects and policies. The Right to Information Act, therefore, can never be a substitute for Parliament questions.

The most important deficiency in procedures for parliamentary questions is the severe time constraint. The Rajya Sabha’s rulebook prescribes that on any working day, 20 questions be listed for oral answers. Each questioner is allowed two supplementaries and others are allowed one supplementary each. Even if six minutes are allowed for a question, the number of questions which can be handled on a day will be only be 10, just half of what is listed for answers. The limited time for questions is further curtailed on days when obituary references and administration of the oath to new members have to be made by the Chair. In actual practice, on an average, not more than five questions a day are raised in the House. One remedy for this is to increase Question Hour by at least half an hour every day in the Rajya Sabha.

The Lok Sabha sits for six hours and the Rajya Sabha for five hours a day. There is every justification for extending Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha to 90 minutes by increasing the total working hours by half an hour every day.

However, increasing the time for questions will not by itself prove to be an effective remedy unless both the member asking the question and the minister replying also learn the practice of being brief. Unfortunately, some members are long-winded and some ministers lack the skill of being precise in their answers. Members often make long statements as a prelude to raising the question.

Further, some ministers use the opportunity to furnish all sorts of information on the subject they deal with, though they may not be strictly relevant to the question asked. Thus the limited time available for questions is further limited without serving any useful purpose.

The Secretariat of the Parliament organises briefing sessions for new members on procedures and practices they have to follow in their work as MPs within the House. It will be useful, and necessary, if such briefing courses are organised for ministers as well.

Dr P.C. Alexander was the Governor of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and is at present a Rajya Sabha member