Question Hour in Parliament by Babita Singh Parasain
Book Overview
Parliament is the supreme deliberative and legislative body of a nation with an objective of providing general good to each and whole of its citizens reflecting their aspirations, at the same time, harbouring national growth. In this respect, Parliament is the apex as well as the core of our democratic polity. Since long, a need was felt to study some of the very important aspects of parliamentary procedures that vastly contribute to our development as a people. This book, within the framework of the Indian Constitution and democratic theory, primarily focuses on a crucial device of raising public issues in the Lok Sabha (The House of the People) of the Indian Parliament. This device is known as 'The Question Hour'. Along with being a tool for our incredible curiosity, questions are also an apparatus for ensuring probity in public life fixing direct accountability of the government towards the legislature. This procedure, through its unique character of oral questions and replies, plays an active role in national growth establishing its effectiveness on public representation paradigms. Rooted in the British parliamentary tradition, procedure of questioning has achieved its unique vibrancy in the Indian parliamentary system. The present work also intertwines the jurisprudential ideas of law and legislation and the concept of accountability in their relation to our democratic eco-system. It further exposits the historical evolution of question procedure, as it were, in Great Britain and India and identifies the key processes of the law of this practice. The book, in its unique endeavour, dwells upon the significance of Question Hour in deep co-relation with Article 21, The Right to life and personal liberty read with the Directive Principles of State Policy and the Right to Information Act, in juxtaposition with this distinguished procedure. In the above perspectives, this work is first of its kind.
