Half of all bills passed by 17th Lok Sabha 'discussed for less than two hours each': Report

New Delhi: Half of the bills passed by the 17th Lok Sabha so far were discussed for less than two hours each and only 16 per cent of them were referred to parliamentary standing committees, data compiled by think tank PRS Legislative Research shows.

According to an analysis by PRS Legislative Research, 172 bills were discussed and passed during the term of 17th Lok Sabha, of which 86 bills in the Lok Sabha and 103 bills in the Rajya Sabha were discussed for less than two hours each.

Similarly, of the 172 bills, only 16 bills in the Lok Sabha and 11 in the Rajya Sabha saw more than 30 members taking part in the debate.

The report came a day after the conclusion of the Winter session — the last full-fledged session of the 17th Lok Sabha.

It stated that no bills were referred to House committees in the Winter session. The proportion of bills referred to committees has decreased from 71 per cent during the 15th Lok Sabha and 25 per cent in the 16th Lok Sabha to 16 per cent during the 17th Lok Sabha.

It is also on its way to becoming the only Lok Sabha to have not elected a deputy speaker. The Constitution mandates Lok Sabha to elect a deputy speaker after the elections as soon as possible.

Between December 14 and 21 of the Winter session, 100 MPs were suspended from the Lok Sabha and 46 from the Rajya Sabha. This accounts for 19 per cent of the strength of each House and is the highest number of suspensions in any Lok Sabha term so far.

All questions that were asked by suspended members were removed from the list of questions listed for responses. Since December 14, the day when the first group of MPs were suspended, 12 per cent of the questions were cancelled in the Lok Sabha and 13 per cent in the Rajya Sabha.

In this session, Trinamool Congress MP in the Lok Sabha Mahua Moitra was expelled on grounds of ethical misconduct.

In the past, MPs have been expelled from Parliament on three other occasions. In 2005, eleven members were expelled from Parliament for taking money in exchange for asking questions. Prior to that, one member each was expelled in 1978 and 1976.