Opinion The hour of reckoning

The Rajya Sabha tried shifting Question Hour to the afternoon,hoping for a more sedate affair. Look what happened.

August 11, 2011 03:00 AM IST First published on: Aug 11, 2011 at 03:00 AM IST

The chairperson of the Rajya Sabha,Hamid Ansari,thought he had found a solution to the problem of raucous scenes,disruptions and adjournments during Question Hour: shift it from 11 am to 3 pm. At the start of the days business,members are impatient to ventilate their grievances. This is especially so as former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee abolished Zero Hour,the small window of opportunity between the end of Question Hour and the start of scheduled business,which was a free-for-all space when MPs used their lungpower to voice views on what they considered matters of pressing importance,and for which no prior notice was required. The presence of TV cameras was,of course,an added incentive for MPs to make their presence felt. It was in the hope of getting a more orderly and meaningful Question Hour that in the last session,the Upper House shifted it to the early afternoon,even though the Lok Sabha continued to schedule Question Hour as the first business of the day.

Ansaris experiment in switching timings proved unsuccessful. Noise and interjections might have disrupted Question Hour in the morning,but by afternoon the House was almost deserted. Frequently starred questions could not be taken up for discussion because the MPs who had tabled them were playing hooky. This session,the Rajya Sabha reverted to the 11 am timing,which may be noisier and more disruptive,but nonetheless more participative.

Question Hour,in fact,is an extremely important part of a parliamentarians duties. Unfortunately,many MPs tend to take this privilege rather lightly and do not accord to it the attention and commitment it deserves. Question Hour is an opportunity for individual MPs,as opposed to political parties,to highlight public grievances and point out flaws in the working of the government. Questions that bring out lacunae in the system have,in the past,led to commissions of inquiry and even legislation. Before the RTI Act came in force,it was the only effective method of extracting information from the government and ensuring some transparency and accountability. Indeed,old-time reporters recall that a number of scoops emerged from information buried in voluminous question papers.

Since the government is in the dock during Question Hour,officials take the exercise very seriously. For more than a fortnight before the start of a Parliament session,bureaucrats burn the midnight oil attempting to file responses in time. Answering each question takes great investment in terms of cost,manpower and time. When Parliament is in session,preparing replies takes priority over all other official work in the secretariat. Starred questions are answered orally,and MPs have a right to ask supplementary questions these are the real headache. Bureaucrats have mastered the art of answering unstarred questions with a series of evasions and obfuscations. The matter is under consideration,The data is being compiled,and Does not apply are some of the standard responses in getting a ministry or department off the hook. Another practice is to supply data and statistics that are peripheral to the actual question. The starred questions are the real problem,since ministers have to be thoroughly prepared on all aspects of the subject under discussion. To provide false information could attract the charge of a breach of parliamentary privilege. An inarticulate M.K. Alagiri and a nervous Murli Deora,as ministers,generally preferred their junior ministers to field the questions. Although earlier prime ministers were meticulous in making an appearance on days when questions concerning the PMO were taken up,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not so regular and often delegates the job to his junior.

There are MPs like Rajeev Chandrasekhar,B.J. Panda,Mabel Rebello,Sumitra Mahajan,Harin Pathak,K.S. Rao and L. Rajgopal among others,who stand out for doing their homework diligently and framing their questions intelligently. Several have a secretarial staff to assist them. On the other hand,others misuse the privilege,either putting frivolous questions or,worse,at the behest of vested interests like arms agents and industrial houses filing leading questions against rival corporates. But ever since 11 MPs were expelled from Parliament after being caught on camera by investigative journalists,accepting cash to ask questions,parliamentarians have become more careful. Cash for questions is not a malady restricted to the Indian Parliament. A decade back,the mother of all parliaments was rocked by scandal when it was discovered that Egyptian businessman Mohammed Al-Fayed had paid some members of the House of Commons £2,000 for each question tabled in Parliament. Compared to this figure,our expelled MPs had offered their services for peanuts. BJP MP Hema Malini faced some embarrassment when it was discovered that she had posed a question relating to water

purifiers,given the fact that she endorses a particular brand of purifiers.

At any rate,the Rajya Sabhas short-lived experiment has demonstrated that the only way to ensure a meaningful Question Hour is not the time of day,but the commitment of our MPs.