In an interview conducted as the monsoon session of parliament gets underway and shortly before the nation celebrates the 75th anniversary of Independence to answer the question ‘How effectively is our parliament functioning? Is it living up to our expectations or is it letting us down?’, Chakshu Roy has said that parliament today, both in terms of the overall quality of MPs and the functioning of the institution, is better than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.
Roy – who is the head of legislative and civic engagement at PRS Legislative Research – says that it’s critical that the anti-defection law be immediately scrapped because it has enslaved MPs and MLAs who are no longer able to voice what they really believe or vote according to their conscience but, instead, have to follow the diktats of their party leadership. Furthermore, this law has also had an adverse impact on the functioning of speakers, raising questions about their propriety and neutrality when they delay taking action as the Act requires.
To ensure greater accountability of the government and more opportunities for the opposition to question the government, Roy says India should adopt the British convention of Prime Minister’s Question Hour which includes a direct exchange between the PM and the leader of the opposition. He says he’s confident that this can be adjudicated as toughly and objectively by the speaker of the Lok Sabha as is the case in Britain, where the speaker of the House of Commons does not shy away from toughly handling the Prime Minister.
In a wide-ranging interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Roy spoke about many aspects of the functioning of parliament over the last 75 years. These include the fact the Lok Sabha is working for a total of 40% less hours than it used to in earlier decades. The last full Lok Sabha, the 16th, worked for only 1,615 hours which is 40% lower than the average for all full-term Lok Sabhas. In the ’50s and ’60s Lok Sabhas almost touched 4,000 hours.
Chakshu Roy also talks about how effectively the Lok Sabha has fulfilled its two key functions – the scrutiny of Bills and the holding to account of governments. On both counts, he says, the Lok Sabha is functioning imperfectly, improperly and inadequately.
Roy also speaks about the situation in state legislatures which, he accepts, now function like rubber stamps in the hands of state governments. Last year they only met for an average of 21 days and in 2020 nearly half the Bills passed by state assemblies were cleared on the same day they were introduced.
There’s a long section in the interview where Roy explains why the anti-defection law must be scrapped but, if that’s not possible, limited only to votes of no-confidence. MPs and MLAs must be free to speak their mind and conscience on other issues, both inside and outside parliament.
Chakshu Roy also talks about the Rajya Sabha, which was constitutionally meant to be a revising chamber but also a chamber where the interests of the states were expressed. The anti-defection law means the first function has been scuppered and changes in legislation in 2003 have broken the link between the states and candidates for the Rajya Sabha. So has the Rajya Sabha lost its raison d’etre?
Finally, Chakshu Roy is questioned about whether, over the last 75 years, the quality, talent and skill of our MPs have improved or regressed. In this connection, he’s also asked about the functioning of parliament as an institution over the same timeframe. Please see the interview for his answer.
