A democracy derives its legitimacy by functioning through its elected institutions. Parliament plays a central role in our democracy by performing several important functions.Both Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha scrutinise the work of the Government through several procedures.Beyond the visible work in the two Houses, a substantial part of the work is carried out by committees. Parliament has recently reconstituted the departmentally related standing committees (DRSCs), which perform three important functions: examine Bills referred to them; select specific topics related to the ministries and examine implementation by the Government; and examine the budgetary outlays of the departments.

To address various challenges (ex: paucity of time, lack of expertise etc) faced by the parliament, departmentally related parliamentary standing committees were set up in 1993 in India. These committees fulfil several objectives :

• Help Parliament manage its business better by functioning throughout the year and allowing for detailed scrutiny of bills. Therefore they increase the efficiency and expertise of Parliament
• They enable input from experts and those who may be directly affected by a policy or legislation. For example, the DRSCs often invite comments from the public and call people to testify.
• Being outside direct public glare allows members to discuss issues and reach consensus without worrying about constituency pressures.
• As the anti-defection law does not apply to committees decisions are not usually made on party lines.
• These committees allow members to focus on some specific areas and build their expertise, which helps them scrutinise issues more thoroughly.

Thus we can say, deliberations and scrutiny by committees ensure that Parliament is able to fulfil some of its constitutional obligations in a politically charged environment and build political consensus on contentious issues.

But there has been a steady decline in the effectiveness of the committees because systematic weakness :

• MPs are unable to pay attention to the committees as their constituencies make a huge demand on their time.
• Committee chair’s supervisory role has not proved to be effective. All the committees are under the overall control of presiding officers. So far no mechanism for a regular assessment of the performance of the committee has been put in place. The need to regularly monitor the committees cannot be overstressed.
• The DRSC usually invites experts while scrutinising Bills. However, this is not always the case, even for Bills with wide ramifications. For example, the DRSC that examined the Right to Education Bill, 2008 did not invite any expert witness
• All Bills are not referred to committees. Though rules mention that the Speaker of Lok Sabha or Chairman of Rajya Sabha refers the Bill, this is usually done on the recommendation of the relevant minister.
• Advisory nature: The recommendation of committees are not binding. It is for the Government or any other member to move the relevant amendments, which may then be voted upon by the House.
• Lack of standing research support: They are backed by the general support staff of Parliament and do not have a dedicated set of researchers associated with them. A related issue is the high churn in parliamentary membership. In each of the last three Lok Sabhas, over 50 per cent of the members elected were first time MPs. As several of the experienced members become ministers, only a small pool of MPs gain subject knowledge by being in a committee for long.
• Lack of transparency in working : All committees meet behind closed doors and only the final report is published, with summary minutes.

These committees are the parliament’s principal instrument to ensure executive accountability, which is central in a representative democracy but suffer from above systematic weakness. This calls for systematic overhaul of these committees. Some steps that can be taken are :

• Ensuring regular meet between chairman of house and chairman of these committees.
• Periodic experiments and reviews will bring about changes.
• Providing for expert testimony from government and other stakeholders. Their work could be made more effective if the committees had full-time, sector-specific research staff.
• Implementing recommendations of national committee on review of working of constitution.
• Committees should be periodically reviewed. All Bills should be referred to these committees. They can elicit public views and call specialist advisors.
• Major reports of all Committees should be discussed in Parliament especially in cases where there is disagreement between a Committee and the government.

Conclusion :

Strengthening the work of these committees is important and, currently, critical. Their strength lies in the depth and rigour of their reports. If these committees work effectively, they can keep a close watch on government functioning.