The Committee on Subordinate Legislation

In one line

Parliament passes an Act and a department writes the rules; this committee of fifteen reads the rules and asks whether the department has stayed inside what Parliament gave it.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Committee on Subordinate Legislation is a Standing Committee of fifteen members constituted under the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business, falling within the category of Scrutiny Committees, whose function is to examine and report to the House whether the powers to make regulations, rules, sub-rules, bye-laws and other statutory instruments conferred by the Constitution or delegated by Parliament are being properly exercised within the limits of the delegation; and it is therefore the principal continuing instrument of legislative control over delegated legislation, the other instruments being the laying procedure and the requirement of publication.

Why the committee exists

Chapter 1210 asks why Parliament delegates at all and gives the four ordinary reasons: pressure on parliamentary time, technicality, emergency and the need for flexibility. Chapter 1220 gives the doctrine that limits delegation: a legislature may delegate the subsidiary and may not abdicate the essential legislative function.

But a doctrine that only a court can apply is a control that operates once in a decade and only when someone can afford to litigate. Between the passing of an Act and a challenge to a rule made under it there are thousands of rules that nobody examines.

This committee is the answer to that gap. It reads the rules as they are made, systematically, whether or not anybody is aggrieved, and it reports to the House that gave the power away.

Which is why it sits in both of MU's labels. Under label 5, it is a legislative committee conducting inquiries. Under label 6, it is legislative control. An answer on either can use it, and an answer that notices it serves both is a better answer.

Composition and place

Fifteen members, in the Rules' list of Standing Committees of the Lok Sabha, chapter 1000; and the Council of States has its own.

Category. In the Rules' six-fold classification of Standing Committees, chapter 1000, it is a Scrutiny Committee, alongside the Committee on Government Assurances and the Committee on Papers Laid on the Table, chapter 1060.

It is a Standing Committee, so its work is "of a continuous nature". That matters for the reason chapter 1010 gave about the Public Accounts Committee: a permanent committee can return to a rule, ask what was done about its report, and press.

What it examines, and on what grounds

Its function is to examine and report to the House whether the powers to make rules, regulations, sub-rules, bye-laws and other statutory instruments, conferred by the Constitution or delegated by Parliament, are being properly exercised within the limits of the delegation.