Select and Joint Committees

What it does. It considers the Bill clause by clause, may take evidence and hear interested persons, and presents a report with the Bill as it recommends it should stand, members being entitled to record minutes of dissent.

What the House may then do, and this is rule 77 in full. After the presentation of the final report the member in charge may move:

(a) that the Bill as reported be taken into consideration; or

(b) that it be re-committed to the same or a new Select Committee, or to the same or a new Joint Committee with the concurrence of the Council, either (i) without limitation, or (ii) with respect to particular clauses or amendments only, or (iii) with instructions to the Committee to make some particular or additional provision in the Bill; or

(c) that the Bill as reported be circulated or recirculated for the purpose of eliciting opinion or further opinion.

The proviso, and it is a real protection. Any member may object to such a motion being made if a copy of the report has not been made available for the use of members for two days before the day the motion is made, and such objection shall prevail unless the Speaker allows the motion.

Rule 77(2): if the member in charge moves that the Bill as reported be taken into consideration, any member may move as an amendment that it be re-committed or circulated or recirculated.

Rule 78: the debate on a motion that the Bill as reported be taken into consideration shall be confined to consideration of the report of the Committee.

Notice what rules 77 and 78 achieve together. The House does not simply receive the report and move on. It must decide what to do with it, and the debate at that stage is confined to the report. The procedure forces the House to address the committee's work rather than to bypass it, which is a discipline the reports of most institutions in this paper do not enjoy.

A Joint Committee

A Joint Committee of the Houses is the same thing where the Bill concerns both Houses or where the Council of States concurs. Rule 77 treats them together throughout, and re-committal to a Joint Committee requires the concurrence of the Council.

And rule 275 of the Rajya Sabha Rules matters here. The provisions applicable to Select Committees on Bills apply mutatis mutandis to the departmentally related Standing Committees. So the procedure worked in this chapter is also the procedure of the twenty-four Standing Committees when they examine a Bill, which is worth a sentence because it saves an answer from having to describe the same thing twice.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee on a scandal

This is a different animal from a Select Committee, and MU's questions do not distinguish them, so an answer should.

A Select or Joint Committee on a Bill is examining a proposal for legislation. Its subject is a text. Its report recommends how the text should read. Nobody is accused of anything.

A Joint Parliamentary Committee on a particular matter is examining what happened. Its subject is conduct. Its report finds facts and attributes responsibility. It is, in substance, a Commission of Inquiry constituted by Parliament out of its own members.

Set the two side by side and three differences appear.

Composition. A Bill committee is chosen for interest and expertise. An inquiry committee's composition reflects party strength, so that the majority in the House is the majority on the committee.

Unanimity. Chapter 1020 quoted rule 274: a Standing Committee's report "shall be based on broad consensus" with a member free to record a dissent. An inquiry into a scandal frequently divides on party lines, and a report with a substantial dissent has a fraction of the authority of a unanimous one.

Consequence. A Bill committee's report goes into the legislative process under rule 77. An inquiry committee's report goes nowhere in particular: it is presented, it may be debated, and there is no rule 77 for it.

So the honest assessment, which is what an evaluative question wants. A Joint Parliamentary Committee has the House's power to send for persons, papers and records, which a Commission of Inquiry also has under section 4 of the 1952 Act. What it does not have is the Commission's independence: a Commission is ordinarily headed by a serving or retired Judge, chapter 430, while a parliamentary inquiry committee is composed of the very politicians whose parties are the subject. The choice between the two instruments is a choice between political legitimacy and judicial detachment, and that is the sentence to write when an examiner asks which is preferable.

A worked example

A Bill on the regulation of digital lending is introduced in the Lok Sabha and the Opposition presses for scrutiny.

Route one, a Select Committee. On a motion carried, the Bill goes to a Select Committee of the House, which considers it clause by clause, takes evidence and reports, members recording minutes of dissent.

What happens to the report. Rule 77: the member in charge may move that the Bill as reported be taken into consideration, or that it be re-committed with or without limitation or with instructions, or that it be circulated for opinion. A member may object if the report has not been available for two days, and the objection prevails unless the Speaker allows the motion. Rule 78 then confines the debate to the report.

Route two, the Standing Committee. The Chairman or the Speaker refers the Bill to the departmentally related Standing Committee under rule 270(b), whose procedure is the Select Committee's by rule 275, and whose report has persuasive value as considered advice under rule 277.

Now change the subject. Instead of a Bill, an allegation that a public sector bank's loans were written off under political pressure.

Neither route fits. That is an inquiry into conduct, and the instruments are a Joint Parliamentary Committee, a Commission of Inquiry under the 1952 Act, or a reference to an investigating agency under Module II.

Which should be chosen? The Committee has the House's powers and its political weight, and it will divide on party lines. The Commission has a Judge and independence, and it will take years and produce a recommendatory report, chapter 470. The agency alone can prosecute. A good answer says that the three are not alternatives but a sequence, and that in practice all three are used on the same facts.

What beginners get wrong

That a Select Committee is permanent. It is ad hoc: it dies when it reports.

That a Select Committee and a Joint Parliamentary Committee do the same work. One examines a Bill; the other examines what happened.

That the House must accept a Select Committee's report. Under rule 77 it may take the Bill as reported into consideration, re-commit it, or circulate it for opinion.

That a Standing Committee has a different procedure from a Select Committee. Rule 275 applies the Select Committee provisions mutatis mutandis.

That a Joint Parliamentary Committee can punish. It reports. Punishment for contempt belongs to the House, chapter 990, and criminal consequences to Module II's machinery.

Quick revision

Ad hoc: appointed for a specific purpose, ceasing to exist on submitting its report. Principal instances: Select and Joint Committees on Bills; also the Railway Convention Committee and the Joint Committee on Food Management in Parliament House Complex.

Rule 77: after the final report, the member in charge may move that the Bill as reported be taken into consideration, or that it be re-committed to the same or a new Select or Joint Committee without limitation, as to particular clauses or amendments, or with instructions to make a particular or additional provision, or that it be circulated or recirculated for eliciting opinion. Proviso: an objection prevails if the report was not available for two days, unless the Speaker allows the motion. Rule 77(2): any member may move re-committal or circulation as an amendment.

Rule 78: the debate is confined to consideration of the report.

Rule 275 (Rajya Sabha): Select Committee provisions apply mutatis mutandis to the Standing Committees.

Bill committee versus inquiry committee: subject is a text against conduct; composition by expertise against party strength; report unanimous by design against divided in practice; and a rule 77 destination against no destination at all. The choice between a Joint Parliamentary Committee and a Commission of Inquiry is a choice between political legitimacy and judicial detachment.

Test yourself

1. What is an ad hoc committee and how does it differ from a Standing Committee? An ad hoc committee is appointed for a specific purpose and ceases to exist when it finishes the task assigned to it and submits its report, the principal instances being the Select and Joint Committees on Bills. A Standing Committee is permanent and regular, constituted from time to time in pursuance of an Act of Parliament or the Rules, and its work is of a continuous nature. The practical difference is that a Standing Committee can return to a subject, receive the Government's reply and report upon that reply, as the Public Accounts Committee does, while an ad hoc committee has one job and one report and has ceased to exist by the time any reply arrives, which is the same weakness that afflicts a Commission of Inquiry.

2. State rule 77 and explain its importance. After the presentation of the final report of a Select Committee of the House or a Joint Committee of the Houses on a Bill, the member in charge may move that the Bill as reported be taken into consideration; or that it be re-committed to the same or a new Select Committee, or to the same or a new Joint Committee with the concurrence of the Council, either without limitation, or with respect to particular clauses or amendments only, or with instructions to the Committee to make some particular or additional provision; or that it be circulated or recirculated for the purpose of eliciting opinion or further opinion. Any member may object to such a motion if a copy of the report has not been available for the use of members for two days before, and the objection prevails unless the Speaker allows the motion. Under sub-rule (2) any member may move re-committal or circulation as an amendment to the motion for consideration. Its importance is that, read with rule 78, which confines the debate on the motion for consideration to consideration of the report, it obliges the House to address the Committee's work rather than to pass over it, a discipline which the reports of most of the institutions in this paper do not enjoy.

3. Distinguish a Select Committee on a Bill from a Joint Parliamentary Committee on a scandal. The subject of the first is a text, a proposal for legislation, and its report recommends how that text should read; the subject of the second is conduct, what happened and who was responsible, so that it is in substance a Commission of Inquiry constituted by Parliament out of its own members. The first is composed for interest and expertise and, by the practice reflected in rule 274, reports on broad consensus with liberty to dissent; the second is composed in proportion to party strength, so that the majority in the House is the majority on the committee, and it frequently divides on party lines, which costs its report much of its authority. And the first has a destination in rule 77, which requires the House to decide what to do with the Bill as reported, while the second has none: its report is presented, it may be debated, and no rule requires anything to follow.

4. If a matter of public importance requires investigation, should Parliament appoint a Joint Committee or should the Government appoint a Commission of Inquiry? Each instrument has what the other lacks. A parliamentary committee has the House's own power to send for persons, papers and records and carries the political weight of the legislature, but it is composed of the politicians whose parties are the subject of the inquiry, so its findings are apt to divide along party lines and to be discounted accordingly. A Commission of Inquiry under the Act of 1952 is ordinarily headed by a serving or retired Judge and possesses the powers of a civil court, so that it brings detachment and procedural regularity, but it is appointed by the very executive whose conduct may be in issue, it takes years, and its report is recommendatory and enforceable proprio vigore against nobody. The honest answer is that the two are not alternatives so much as complementary, that neither can prosecute, which is the function of the machinery in Module II, and that in practice all three routes are used upon the same facts.