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Parliament: structure, functioning, committees
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UPSC-tuned lesson on Parliament's structure, sessions and procedures, money vs ordinary bills, and the committee system under Articles 79-122.
Article 79 constitutes the Parliament of India as the President plus two Houses: the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of the People (Lok Sabha). The President is an integral part of Parliament though he sits in neither House: no bill becomes law without assent under Article 111, and the President summons, prorogues and may dissolve the Lok Sabha (Article 85).
The Lok Sabha (Article 81) has a maximum strength of 552 — 530 from states, 20 from Union Territories, and formerly up to 2 Anglo-Indians nominated under Article 331 (abolished by the 104th Amendment Act, 2019, effective 25 January 2020). Its current effective strength is 543 elected members chosen by direct election on the basis of universal adult suffrage. The normal term is five years (Article 83), extendable by one year at a time during a Proclamation of Emergency — used once, from 1976 to 1977 during the 1975 Emergency.
The Rajya Sabha (Article 80) has a maximum of 250 members: up to 238 representing states and UTs, elected indirectly by elected members of State Legislative Assemblies through the single transferable vote system of proportional representation, plus 12 nominated by the President for distinction in literature, science, art and social service. It is a permanent House (Article 83(1)) — not subject to dissolution — with one-third of members retiring every second year. Seats are allotted by population, so Uttar Pradesh sends 31 members while many small states send one.
The Lok Sabha elects a Speaker and Deputy Speaker (Article 93); the Speaker certifies Money Bills under Article 110(3) and decides disqualification under the Tenth Schedule, a power held subject to judicial review after Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992). The Vice-President is ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (Article 89); the House elects a Deputy Chairman.
Article 85 requires that the gap between two sessions not exceed six months, yielding three customary sessions: Budget, Monsoon and Winter. The quorum is one-tenth of the total membership (Article 100). The procedural devices a candidate must retain include the Question Hour and Zero Hour (the latter an Indian innovation, not in the rules), and motions — Adjournment Motion, Calling Attention, No-Confidence Motion (Article 75: the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha), and the Censure Motion. A joint sitting (Article 108), summoned to resolve a deadlock on an ordinary bill, has occurred only three times: the Dowry Prohibition Bill (1961), the Banking Service Commission (Repeal) Bill (1978), and the Prevention of Terrorism Bill (2002).
The legislative core of Parliament is the bill. An ordinary bill may originate in either House and must be passed by both; a deadlock can be resolved by a joint sitting under Article 108. A Money Bill is defined exhaustively in Article 110 — confined to matters such as taxation, borrowing, and the Consolidated Fund. It can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha, only on the President's recommendation, and the Speaker's certificate under Article 110(3) is final. The Rajya Sabha cannot reject or amend a Money Bill; it has only 14 days to return it with recommendations (Article 109). A Financial Bill (Article 117) involves expenditure but is not confined to Article 110 matters, so it follows the ordinary procedure with the President's recommendation. The Money Bill route became politically contentious after the Aadhaar Act, 2016 was certified a Money Bill — upheld in K.S. Puttaswamy (Aadhaar) v. Union of India (2018), though challenged again in subsequent litigation.
Given that the House cannot scrutinise every detail on the floor, Parliament works through committees. The three financial committees are the high-yield set:
The Department-Related Standing Committees (DRSCs), introduced in 1993 and now numbering 24, each have 31 members (21 Lok Sabha, 10 Rajya Sabha) and examine demands for grants, bills referred to them, and ministry performance. They embody the principle that ministers cannot be committee chairs. Ad hoc committees include Select and Joint Committees on specific bills, such as the JPC on the 2G spectrum allocation (2011).
This topic is a perennial in Prelims GS and a backbone of Mains GS-2 ("Parliament and State Legislatures — structure, functioning, conduct of business, powers & privileges"). Prelims tests precise numbers, Article references and the joint-sitting list — e.g., UPSC 2021 asked about the Rajya Sabha's role on Money Bills, and 2013 tested PAC composition. Mains rewards analysis: the declining number of sittings (Lok Sabha sat for an average of about 130 days in the 1950s versus roughly 55 today), falling rates of bill referral to committees, and the misuse of the Money Bill route to bypass the Rajya Sabha. Retain the exact figures — 552, 250, 110, 108, 151 — because Prelims punishes approximation.
