No work, no pay

The Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, put his finger on the spot when, while chastising members who had not allowed Parliament to function in recent days and weeks, he said that the country's citizens were watching and would ask that the policy of "no work, no pay" be applied to parliamentarians. That is, instead of getting the pay hike that parliamentarians want to vote for themselves, they should not be getting paid at all. As Mr Chatterjee pointed out, the Lok Sabha has just lost 19 hours out of its scheduled 36 hours of work, thanks to adjournments and forced interruptions. As a result, of 101 starred questions (these allow members to ask the minister supplementary questions based on the answer given), only five were answered orally. Indeed, in the Rajya Sabha, Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was forced to pull up two ministers for being absent when their names were called out.

The ruling UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, is reported to be happy that the government has been able to get important Bills passed during the current session, including amendments to the laws on electricity and rural employment guarantee. The question is: What about the rest? Going by the government's own list, important Bills that have not been passed are on the Forwards Contract Regulation Amendment, the Seeds Bill, and the National Commission for Minorities (Repeal). Among important ones listed for introduction is one on allowing foreign universities into the country. And, without any consensus on issues pertaining to pension reforms, this Bill has not even been considered. As if to add insult to injury, the government is reported to be in favour of closing the Budget session ahead of schedule because it has no legislation to bring to the House!

But Parliament's job is not just to pass Bills; it is to debate them before they are passed, and this does not seem to be happening. In his latest book, Rajya Sabha MP and former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan has cited instances when important Bills were passed, allegedly by voice vote, in the midst of bedlam in the House, when no one could either hear or know what was going on. In March last year, Parliament kept getting disrupted on the "office of profit" issue; so the government moved a motion to allow the Budget's expenditure items to be passed without them even being debated by the standing committees--which then went on to examine them after the Budget had already been passed by the main House! This is reducing Parliamentary control over the government to an expensive farce.

The system's paralysis is getting worse with time. While the Lok Sabha sat for 85 per cent of the time scheduled in the Budget session last year, according to data collated by PRS Legislative Research, this has fallen to 68 per cent in the Budget session this year (till May 15). For the Rajya Sabha, the number has fallen from 95 per cent to just 53 per cent. So, while Ms Gandhi might be satisfied with the Bills being passed, the question is whether serious legislative work is getting the attention of the two Houses. Perhaps the direction pointed out by the Speaker should be followed; MPs should not be allowed to get their salaries and/or allowances till a certain amount of time is spent in the House, debating issues and asking questions. That's what they're elected and paid to do. As Mr Chatterjee says, no work should mean no pay.