The Standing Committees

In one line

Twenty-four committees, one covering every Ministry, thirty-one members each drawn from both Houses, reconstituted every year, examining Bills and Demands for Grants and any subject in their Ministry's field.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the departmentally related Standing Committees, introduced in 1993, are twenty-four in number and cover under their jurisdiction all the Ministries and Departments of the Government of India; each consists of thirty-one members, twenty-one from the Lok Sabha and ten from the Rajya Sabha, nominated by the Speaker and the Chairman respectively; the term of office of these Committees does not exceed one year; and they scrutinise the functioning of the Government within their respective mandates, principally by examining Bills referred to them, the Demands for Grants of their Ministries, the annual reports of those Ministries, and long-term policy documents.

What the system is

Twenty-four committees, covering all the Ministries and Departments of the Government of India. Every part of the Union executive falls within the jurisdiction of one of them.

Thirty-one members each: twenty-one from the Lok Sabha and ten from the Rajya Sabha, nominated by the Speaker and the Chairman respectively.

A term not exceeding one year, so the committees are reconstituted annually.

Two features of that composition are worth an examiner's attention.

They are committees of both Houses. The Financial Committees are listed in the Lok Sabha Rules; these draw from both, which gives the Council of States a share in scrutiny it does not otherwise have over money.

And they are nominated, not elected. The Speaker and the Chairman nominate. Chapter 1130 asks what follows from that, and the answer is that the composition reflects party strengths and the nomination is a party matter.

What they do

Bills. A Bill may be referred to the Standing Committee for the Ministry concerned, which takes evidence, hears interested persons and reports. Reference is not automatic, and chapter 1270 treats the proportion of Bills passed without reference as a measure of how much scrutiny actually happens.

Demands for Grants. Each Committee examines the Demands of its Ministries before the House votes them, and reports. This is the only systematic pre-vote scrutiny of expenditure that exists, and it is what distinguishes the modern system from the position before 1993, when the House voted demands it had not examined and the Public Accounts Committee looked at the spending years later.

But note the limit, and chapter 1270 turns on it. A Standing Committee may not propose a cut, and its report does not bind the House. When the guillotine falls under the rule on the allotment of time, the outstanding Demands are put and voted without discussion, whatever the Committee said.