Pranab Mukherjee calls for increasing Parliamentary sessions, questions sectarian interests

The Parliament of India is supposed to be the fountain-head of governance in our country. The executive inherent in Parliament itself is subservient to the collective institution of Parliament. I have said it time and again and I repeat that the function of the Parliament is to make laws, debate, deliberate and decide on policies. Thereafter, it is the duty of Parliament to hold the Executive accountable for the execution of those decisions. All executive decisions prospectively or in retrospect are subject to scrutiny by the Parliament. However, a very unfortunate trend of undermining the very purpose of Parliament has evolved during the past decade or so.

Resorting to disruption, as an established Parliamentary practice and defining it as a constructive deliberative method has led to Parliamentary paralysis. This has affected the institution to such an extent that the very institution of Parliament is increasingly becoming irrelevant. Time that should be spent on debating issues that affect the people of India is lost to din, filibuster and drama. Both the Houses of Parliament are more often than not, adjourned for days altogether.

From an average of 127 days for Lok Sabha and 93 days for Rajya Sabha in the 1950s, the number of sittings of both the Houses has reduced to an average of about 75 days now. Even on these days, most of the time is lost in pointless partisanship and acrimonious blame-game between the treasury and opposition benches. There is an absolute lack of interest in issues of national importance. What apparently guides the agenda of both the Houses of Parliament is one-upmanship on divisive malicious allegations and counter allegations. The fact that Governments and Opposition are organically inseparable and symbiotic has been lost. This has given rise to a situation where issues that should be discussed in the Houses are taken up for discussion by social groups and individuals with vested interests.

In addition to this, the rise in identity-based politics during the last three decades has diluted the very representative aspect of the Parliament. An electorate divided on caste and community lines throws up a polarised mandate. This is ultimately reflected in the functioning of the Parliament which rather than pursuing a national agenda ends up pursuing sectarian interests.

The Parliament of India is also the ultimate custodian of public finance. However, due to the reasons enumerated above, lakhs of crores of rupees are spent without proper Parliamentary scrutiny. This is happening despite the fact that not a single rupee can be spent out of the Consolidated Fund of India, without prior approval of the Parliament.

The process of auditing of expenditure through the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has also increasingly become ineffective because only a limited number of cases are either referred to it or accepted by it. In this regard, to my mind, it will be of immense help if the department related standing committees are involved in the task of auditing.

As of today, the standing committees are mandated with: (i) scrutinising demands for grants and expenditure proposed in the Budget without any actual change, (ii) scrutinising of bills related to their Departments/Ministries, and (iii) Examining the Annual Report of the related Department/Ministry. We should provide them with a fourth mandate which entails scrutinising the audit reports not accepted by the Public Accounts Committee. This could be done without diluting the mandated role and responsibilities of the PAC. In fact, a suggestion to this effect was made during Prime Minister Vajpayee's tenure, where each of the Departmental Standing Committee could be entrusted to examine and scrutinize the post Budget expenditure proposals. We have, to a very large extent, institutionalised the committee system in the Parliament. If they are made more effective, they will be able to deliver much work that is mandated to the Parliament as a whole. For this to happen, mutual respect and understanding between the Government and the Opposition is the essential prerequisite.

Another challenge facing our Parliamentary system is a deliberate attempt by groups and individuals, who cannot otherwise get elected, to influence governance by discrediting the 788 members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. This indeed is a trend that needs to be arrested lest it leads to anarchy and oligarchic control of the state apparatus. Ironically, the task of establishing their credibility as a public representative lies with the members themselves. They will have to rise up to this challenge by proving their critics wrong.

Apart from the aforementioned, I would like to draw attention of all concerned towards some other shortcomings that have crept in over time in our Parliamentary system.

i) Disproportionately large size of the electorate vis-a-vis the number of public representatives. The last enhancement of seats in Lok Sabha took place in 1977, almost half a century ago, on the basis of 1971 census, according to which the entire population of the country was 55 crores. Thereafter, there has been an embargo on increasing the number of seats in Parliament and State Assemblies till the year 2026. This has resulted in the fact that the number of voters per Lok Sabha Constituency as per the 2011 census has risen to more than 16 lakh. In the last general election of 2014, more than 83 crore voters were enrolled and were eligible for voting for 543 members of the Lok Sabha.

ii) Adequate representation of women in Parliament and the Assemblies has emerged as a major area of concern. An appropriate mechanism to ensure this should be worked out and necessary amendments should be brought about in the Constitution.

iii) During elections, the Election Commission of India puts an embargo on the sanctioning and implementation of developmental projects, leading to near estoppel of day to day administration. In a country of India's size and magnitude, where apart from the Parliament, there are 29 State Assemblies and 2 Union Territories with elected assemblies, almost throughout the year one or the other election takes place. In this regard, there is a thought of holding Assembly and Parliamentary Elections simultaneously. However, it is possible only by amending the Constitution and with political consensus. There are many flaws that will need to be adequately addressed if the pre 1967 electoral arrangements of simultaneous elections to Parliament and Assemblies have to be effected. This may address this problem to some extent. Another alternate could be to amend the model code of conduct appropriately and ensure that no developmental work is stopped simply because of the fact that elections are taking place. Ideally, it may be confined only to the elections to Lok Sabha which takes place all over the country and should be for a period of 3-4 weeks when actual Election process starts with the filing on nomination papers and ends with the casting of votes. It need not be applicable to election to the Assemblies of the States and Union Territories.

After this rather long insight into the evolution, rolling out and shortcomings of the Parliamentary system in India, I would like to emphasize that despite challenges and obstacles, it has served the country well. Indeed, it will not be an overstatement to say that the Parliamentary System was and remains the best course of Governance and Administration for India in all its diverse and pluralistic splendour. Time and again any attempts at tampering with it have proved to be futile because of its inherently democratic strengths. The system, while on one hand ensured that our representative ethos was consistently upheld, on the other hand it proved to be the vehicle of unprecedented socioeconomic transformation.