The Indian Parliament is one of the world’s largest democracies. Representing the concerns and interests of 1.2 billion people, it has a serious legislative responsibility. Unfortunately, it has demeaned itself by blatantly flouting its Constitutional limits and various other statutory rules. Parliamentary obstructionism is a process of deliberate interference with the legislative process by various means like sloganeering, tearing documents, walkouts and loud noises.
In India, parliamentary obstructionism is not morally defensible since a very detailed codified procedure governs our legislative bodies. The parliamentary privileges enjoyed by the MPs and the MlAs are specifically provided in the Constitution and do not provide any right to obstruct the proceedings. Further, the ‘Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the lokSabha and the RajyaSabha’ categorically prohibit disruption of proceedings in the House and also provide for withdrawal and suspension of such members by the Speaker.
What our MPs and MlAs fail to understand is the vast difference existing between their right to object and right to obstruct. For a representative Government that functions on consensus and deliberations, the right to object is given to MPs to show their disagreement with respect to any point that is proposed by the Government. The same is enlisted as a parliamentary privilege in the Constitution. The right to obstruct on the other hand is a self-proclaimed right of the MPs and is nothing but a willful and persistent misconduct to obstruct the normal proceedings.
It is disgraceful that parliamentary obstructionism has become a common trend and norm to gain public attention. It has been consistently used as a tool to gain publicity to increase electoral prospects.
This has resulted in huge wastage of the taxpayers’ money. It is estimated that ` 1.5 crore is spent per day to conduct parliamentary proceedings. We cannot even begin to estimate the money lost due to the failure of the 15th lok Sabha sessions which has turned out to be the most unproductive so far.
The 2013 winter session had only 10 sittings and both the Houses were adjourned ahead of schedule because of the daily uproar.
As many as 30 pro-people Bills such as the Street Vendors Bill are still pending and can now be taken up only after the general elections. Isn’t it an irony that the Parliament, which enjoys the highest legitimacy by virtue of representative democracy, undermines this very legitimate expectation of the people it representsIJ
Interestingly, civil society members and the media are now debating over crucial policies and Bills, which ought to be adopted in the Parliament. Arun Jaitley defended the Opposition’s right to obstruction and stated that it must be used in the rarest-of-rare cases. But how are these ‘rarest of rare’ cases to be classifiedIJ Parliamentary obstructionism is distinctly prohibited and only an amendment of the codified procedural rules can legalise it. It also doesn’t make sense as to how parliamentary obstructionism can be used as an instrument of accountability by justifying it on moral grounds when the same accountability can be provided by strong intra-organ control legislative instruments such as No-Confidence Motion, Question Hour and Collective Responsibility of the Government towards the House.
Persistent obstructions in the proceedings have resulted in passing of crucial Bills and Budgets in haste without careful scrutiny.
It is very reasonable to infer that none of the political parties which form the Government and the Opposition are interested in bringing any institutional reforms. This is substantiated by the fact that no penalty is imposed on the party MPs for nonperformance of their parliamentary duties.
Thus, if the legislature as an organ has to be reformed then the ‘Rules of Conduct and Procedure of the lokSabha and RajyaSabha’ and the State Assemblies must be strictly enforced by the Speaker of the House, no matter how politically weak his office seems to be. Parliamentary obstructionism in India has huge antidemocratic implications; it is high time the political parties understood the essence of representative democracy and what is legitimately expected out of them.
(The writer is a member of the legislative and Policy Research Club, National law University Odisha, Cuttack)