Scrapping Question Hour: Killing the Parliament’s soul

The “Question Hour can be suspended for a day or so to meet any exigency…The executive has no power to unilaterally decide to dispense with questions without the sanction of the whole House. The House has to expressly sanction it through a resolution. The members should realise that their constitutional right is being taken away by the executive,” former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha, P.D.T. Achary has written in a scathing article following the government’s move to scrap Question Hour in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Emphasising that scrapping of the Question Hour is not only against the spirit of the Parliament and thus unconstitutional, but also beyond the constitutional powers of the executive, Achary argued, “The real problem seems to be the general attitude of those who run the government...The general tendency is to avoid questions if possible because there is a reluctance to disclose to the public many crucial facts which have political ramifications. No government can lie to an early Parliament. If the lie is caught, there will be problems like privilege action”.

Though Achary did not name the ruling dispensation, it is quite obvious that he is referring to the Narendra Modi-led Central government and its doing away with parliamentary traditions.

After initial hiccups, when the Modi government decided to convene the Monsoon Session, it decided to cut short the duration of the session as well as suspend the Question Hour, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier it was being speculated upon that the Monsoon Session will not be held at all this year

Not only has the Question Hour been suspended but the duration of Zero Hour has also been reduced to 30 minutes. Also, the government said only starred question will be allowed.

Though the Lok Sabha Secretariat said that “this change is only for the Monsoon Session and the government has made it clear that the Question Hour will be back in the Winter Session,” it failed to convince the Opposition. Many leaders from the Opposition benches have expressed their apprehensions over the issue while talking to National Herald.

Broadly, the Opposition is of view that by suspending the Question Hour, the Modi government is escaping from its responsibility of answering to the nation on crucial issues such as the crumbling economy, handling of the pandemic and Chinese incursion in Ladakh. The Opposition feels that even a slight change in parliamentary protocol will have far reaching impact. It will adversely affect the ability of an MP to raise questions in the House and the way debates and discussions are conducted in the House.

The importance of the Question Hour in a parliamentary democracy lies in the fact that by using this time slot as a tool, the Opposition can hold the movement responsible and raise questions on issues of socio, political and economic importance. It is worth noting here that a session of Lok Sabha begins with the Question Hour. To ensure transparency in the proceeding of the House, a live telecast of the Question Hour was started in 1991.

Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said “scrapping of the Question Hour” is equal to “preventing legislators from raising matters of national importance”, which echoed the response from other parties also.

“You will kindly appreciate the fact that raising questions in Parliament, and issues of public importance are foremost of the procedural methods available to members to vent issues of national and public importance,” said Chowdhury in a letter written to the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla last week.

TMC leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien asked, “Parliament overall working hours remain the same so why cancel Question Hour? Pandemic excuse to murder democracy?”

Communist Party of India MP Binoy Viswam said that by doing away with the Question Hour, “the Modi government has made sure the government’s accountability to Parliament and the people were removed”.

Question Hour is the first hour of a sitting session of India’s Lok Sabha devoted to questions that Members of Parliament raise about any aspect of administrative activity. The concerned Minister is obliged to answer to the Parliament, either orally or in writing, depending on the type of question raised.

“The Question Hour is an interesting part of the Parliamentary proceedings. Although a question mainly seeks information and tries to elicit facts on a particular subject, there are many a time lively and quicksilver repartees between the Members asking the questions and the Ministers answering them,” reads the Lok Sabha website.

Except a few times such as in 1962 when India fought a war with China, Parliament has never seen suspension of the Question Hour.

Though, given the pandemic, many states like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan too suspended the Question Hour, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh decided to continue with the tradition.