The Hindu Business Line : Expensive Upper Chambers

Article 79 of the Constitution states that there shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consist of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People. Thus, were born the Rajya Sabha (RS) and the Lok Sabha (LS).

For the common man and woman, who enjoy the right to vote, LS stands as the bedrock of their democracy, with periodic elections deciding who should occupy the 530 positions in the House.

The Constitution stipulates that the RS shall have a maximum of 238 representatives of States and Union Territories. Those representing the States are to be elected by members of the State Legislatures, while those representing UTs are to be "chosen in such manner as Parliament may by law prescribe." In addition, 12 members are to be nominated by the President, having regard to their "special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters as" literature, science, art and social service. The RS gets its teeth from Article 107, which stipulates that "a Bill shall not be deemed to have been passed by the Houses of Parliament unless it has been agreed to by both Houses, either without amendment or with such amendments only as are agreed to by both Houses."

Mirroring the two Houses at the level of the Union, the States could have not only a Legislative Assembly, but also a Legislative Council. How effective have been the directly elected and indirectly chosen houses? The Hindu of March 22 editorially commented: "Seventy-six per cent of those who responded to a recent nation-wide survey by Outlook magazine felt that politicians had given Indian democracy a bad name... The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha may have been conceived by the founding fathers as Houses of enlightened debate but today the image of Parliament that emerges from television is more akin to a boxing ring." The editorial concluded that the Treasury and the Opposition Benches must come to a minimum agreement on running Parliament for the sake of Indian democracy.

It is time that a high-power Parliamentary committee looked into rationalisation of our two Houses at the Union and State levels, and also set the tone for the conduct of our netas. We just cannot afford to pay for unproductive expenditures in the name of upholding the Constitution, which has been and can be amended any number of times.

(The author, a Visiting Faculty at Sri Sathya Sai University, Prashanti Nilayam, can be contacted at bhanoji@gmail.com)

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