Parliamentary privileges, sessions & devices (motions, questions)
UPSC-grade treatment of parliamentary privileges, the calendar of sessions, and the procedural devices—questions and motions—that drive accountability.
The constitutional basis of privilege
Parliamentary privileges are the special rights, immunities and exemptions enjoyed by the two Houses, their committees and members, without which they cannot discharge their functions. The source is Article 105 (Parliament) and Article 194 (State legislatures). These articles enumerate two privileges expressly: (1) freedom of speech in Parliament, and (2) immunity from court proceedings for anything said or any vote given in the House or its committees. Beyond these, Article 105(3) originally equated the privileges with those of the British House of Commons as on 26 January 1950; the 44th Amendment Act, 1978 redrafted the clause but preserved the same content by referring to privileges as they existed before that amendment. Privileges have never been codified into an exhaustive statute, a point repeatedly raised in Parliament but never enacted.
Individual versus collective privileges
Individual privileges include freedom of speech under Article 105(1) (subject to constitutional provisions and rules), freedom from arrest in civil cases during the session and 40 days before and after (no immunity in criminal matters or preventive detention), and exemption from jury service. Collective privileges of the House include the right to publish its proceedings (and prohibit others from doing so), to exclude strangers, to punish members and outsiders for breach of privilege or contempt, to regulate its internal proceedings, and to receive immediate information of a member's arrest.
Breach of privilege and the courts
A breach of privilege attracts punishment ranging from admonition and reprimand to imprisonment, and for members, suspension or expulsion. The classic Indian instance is the Searchlight case (M.S.M. Sharma v. Sri Krishna Sinha, 1959), where the Supreme Court upheld the House's power to prohibit publication. In Keshav Singh's case (1965), a Presidential reference, the Court held that the judiciary can examine whether a privilege exists but generally not the House's internal proceedings—Article 122 and Article 212 bar courts from inquiring into procedural irregularity. The key tension a candidate must retain: the freedom of speech under Article 105 is wider than Article 19(1)(a) and is not subject to its reasonable restrictions, but it does not extend to immunity from prosecution for bribery to vote in a particular way after Sita Soren v. Union of India (2024), which overruled the 1998 P.V. Narasimha Rao judgment that had granted such immunity.
