POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 8 March 2008

Breach Of Privilege

IT’S ONE BIG TAMASHA

By Poonam I Kaushish

Question: Who said the following: (a) “The House is becoming a place of tamasha. You are working overtime to finish democracy. It is a farce.” (b) “Is not disruption of proceedings during the Question Hour a breach of privilege of individual members who await answers to admitted starred questions, and supplementary questions?”

Answer: No guesses, it’s the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and his counterpart in the Rajya Sabha Vice President and Chairman Hamid Ansari. Both clearly exasperated over the conduct of our Right Honourables in the two Houses of Parliament.

But unlike the past when these reprimands were dismissed out of hand, this time round it has set our MPs to give serious thought, deliberate and debate on the issue and come out with their recommendations on how to end the fast deteriorating situation.  More so against the backdrop of  Ansari taking the unprecedented step of referring a complaint by a group of seven MPs belonging to the UPA to the Committee of Privileges on Thursday last. Their grouse was that they could not “speak and ask supplementaries” during Question Hour allegedly because some Opposition MPs did not allow the House to function. Pertinently, he raised the question whether those disrupting the House breach the privilege of those MPs scheduled to ask questions during that period.

Under Rule 203 of the Rules and Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States, the Chairman has the power to “refer any question of privilege to the Committee of Privileges for examination, investigation and report.” Which then would have to examine, investigate and then submit a report on the matter. It is another matter that the cornered MPs apologized and all was forgiven.

However, Ansari’s well-intended extraordinary action may not have any salutary immediate effect given that MPs have still to codify their privileges. True, technically speaking, adjournment, disturbances, hungama, raising pandemonium and rushing into the well of the House constitutes breach of privilege. However, the question can be argued both ways. Some parliamentary experts assert that nothing technically stops the Chair from taking disciplinary action, yet not much happens in terms of handing out punishment. Primarily because the rules are not enforced by the Presiding Officers.

Invariably, both the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman neither name nor ask an MP or MPs disrupting the proceedings to withdraw from the House. And when the recalcitrant MP refuses to do so seldom are Marshals summoned. The last time was on 22 July 1998 when the Rashtriya Janata Party MP Anand Mohan disrupted the proceedings in the Lok Sabha, refusing to heed the Speaker's call for silence and was then ordered to be evicted from the House.    

On the obverse not a few feel that the Chair should also not lose sight of the fact that members act to highlight issues of great national importance on their leaders' instructions or to raise matters dear to the aam aadmi in their constituency. Also, if there is a large majority of members, which stood up and disrupted the House, would it be a matter for the privileges committee? More important, isn’t preserving the sanctity of Parliament as the highest democratic forum everyone’s responsibility?

However, Ansari is not being guided by any whims. Nor is he cracking the whip during the time the Vice-President normally presides ever the Rajya Sabha, in his dual role as Chairman. He is doing so simply because the Question Hour is the crucial hyphen that links the Government to Parliament. It provides for daily and continuing accountability of the Executive to the Legislature. Wherein the Government through its Ministers is duty-bound to answer questions.

Any member in either House can put a question to the Prime Minister or any other Minister and demand an honest answer. Making question time the most powerful weapon available to the MPs, and more especially the Opposition, to keep the Government on a tight leash. It is based on the fundamental right to information enshrined in the Constitution, via questions.

Mercifully, the rules of the House ensure that the Government is well and truly in the dock and cannot, therefore, avoid questions and conveniently escape. Perhaps, this Hour more than any other time of the House serves as a barometer of Governmental efficiency and performance at the macro level and that of a Minister at the micro level. When they are required to answer queries relating to matters of public importance and if the administrative responsibility reposed in them.

Sadly over the years, with confrontationalist politics and politically motivated bashing becoming the raging cult, our Right Honourables are showing less and less interest in what they should be doing ---- law making. Bringing things to such a pass that the pursuit of power, pelf and patronage is replacing all else.

The gradual decline in the number of sittings underscores it all. The Rajya Sabha, which had an annual average of 90.5 sittings in 1952-61, came down to 71.3 in 1992-2001 — a decline of 20 per cent. The comparative figures for the Lok Sabha are 124.2 and 81.0 — a decline of 34 per cent. The State Assemblies are worse off, with the average now being in the range of 3 to 20 sittings every year.

More. The annual average of the Bills passed by Parliament has come down from 68 in 1952-61 to 49.9 in 1992-2001. Nearly 23 per cent of MPs elected in 2004 had criminal cases registered against them and over half of these are these that could lead to imprisonment for five years or more. The situation is worse in the case of MLAs.

Shockingly, both the Houses lost over 130 hours of time (cost of each minute being Rs 26,000) due to repeated uproar and pandemonium which has cost the tax payer over Rs 20 crore last year. Up till now the 14th Lok Sabha, has lost 21 per cent of the time due to adjournments.

Recall in 2001 an all-India conference on Discipline and Decorum in Parliament and State Legislatures was convened by the then Lok Sabha Speaker Balyogi. The 350-strong jamboree included the Rajya Sabha Chairman, the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition, Chief Ministers, Parliamentary Affairs Ministers, Party leaders and Chief Whips who agreed to evolve a code of conduct and make each other answerable.

Alas, all the suggestions mooted therein were still-born. Only adding to the piling trivia heard before. Recall, a similar conference held in 1992 too did not yield any result. Understandably, in today’s media is the massage age where everything is factored. If governance is all about ‘feeling good’ then politics is all about ‘sounding good.’ Asserted an MP, “In a country where ethics and politics are two ends of a spectrum, one fails to comprehend how a Presiding Officer’s anguish or sending a matter to the Privileges Committee can stem the growing ‘rot of moral decay’ in our polity.

“Bluntly, it means that Parliament in its collective wisdom has tacitly decided to throw ethics to the dogs”, stated a senior old-timer. “Can a code of conduct or rules, for instance, tame our politicians who increasingly call the shots.” Parliament and the State Assemblies have been vandalized as never before. Pandemonium, dharnas and adjournments have become their hallmark: Reducing these buildings, which house the aspirations of the people, to perspiration and one-upmanship. Turning them into market places where leaders are bought and sold like prize bulls with the winner taking it all.

In sum, even as one applauds the initiatives of the two Presiding Officers, much still remains to be done. It is high time our Right Honourables give serious thought to rectifying all the scandalous distortions that have seeped in and urgently work for a change. Ansari and Chatterjee have shown the way. Will our jan sevaks cooperate with them to make Parliament truly India’s high temple of democracy? --- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)

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