In regard to the constitution of the Union Parliament, the Indian Constitution has adopted the English pattern.’ Its two characteristics are that the Head of the State is an integral part of the Legislature and that it is a bicameral Legislature.
Article 79 of the Indian Constitution provides “There shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consist of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of People”. The President though cannot be a member of either House but, he is an integral part of the Union Parliament.
Significance of Parliament:
- Representative Democracy: Enables representation of various section of society, voice their concerns and participate in decision making.
- Responsible Government:
- Ensures collective responsibility of the Council of Ministers to the Lok Sabha and by extension to the people of India.
- Enables citizens to keep elected executives in control.
- Offers various tools for parliamentarians to extract accountability from government. For ex. Zero Hour, Question Hour, Motions and Resolutions etc.
- Consociational democracy: Allows differing and fragmented sections of political opinion to come together into stable coalitions over issues.
- Deliberative democracy: Highest forum for deliberation over national issues.
- Law Making functions:
- Only institution which can carry out Amendments to the Constitution.
- Highest law-making body in the country
- Parliamentary Committees allow scrutinize functioning of government, its finances and scrutinize legislations effectively. members
Thus, legislature is not merely a law-making body but rather it is the Centre of all democratic political process including discussions, deliberations, protests, demonstration, unanimity, concern and co-operation.
Power of the Parliament
Executive Power
The Constitution of India established a parliamentary form of government in which the Executive is responsible to the Parliament for its policies and acts.
Hence, the Parliament exercises control over the Executive through question-hour, zero hour, half-an-hour discussion, calling attention motion etc.
Constituent Power
The Parliament is vested with the powers to amend the Constitution by way of addition, variation or repeal of any provision.
- The major part of the Constitution can be amended by the Parliament with special majority, that is, a majority of the total membership of each House and a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting in each House.
- Some other provisions of the Constitution can be amended by the Parliament with simple majority, that is, a majority of the members present and voting in each House of Parliament. Only a few pro- visions of the Constitution can be amended by the Parliament (by special majority) and with the consent of at least half of the state Legislatures (by simple majority).
- However, the power to initiate the process of the amendment of the Constitution (in all the three cases) lies exclusively in the hands of the Parliament and not the state legislature.
Financial Power
No tax can be levied or collected and no expenditure can be incurred by the Executive except under the authority and with the approval of Parliament.
Hence, the budget is placed before the Parliament for its approval.
- The enactment of the budget by the Parliament legalises the receipts and expenditure of the government for the ensuing financial year.
- The Parliament also scrutinises government spending and financial performance with the help of its financial committees. These include public accounts committee, estimates committee and committee on public undertakings. They bring out the cases of illegal, irregular, unauthorised, improper usage and wastage and extravagance in public expenditure.
Judicial Power
- It can impeach the President for the violation of the Constitution.
- It can remove the Vice-President from his office.
- It can recommend the removal of judges (including chief justice) of the Supreme Court and the high courts, chief election commissioner, comptroller and auditor general to the president.
- It can punish its members or outsiders for the breach of its privileges or its contempt.
Provisional Parliament (Article 379)
The Parliamentary body, the Constituent Assembly, which enacted the Constitution, acted as Provisional Parliament till replaced in 1952, on the constitution of the Parliament under the Constitution. The laws passed by the Provisional Parliament, in the exercise of ordinary legislative power, do not enjoy the status as the Constitution or some such special status, but are the laws made by Parliament under the Constitution.
Bicameral Legislature (Article 79)
The Union Parliament consists of two Houses, i.e., Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of People (Lok Sabha). The question of a State Legislature to be a bicameral or unicameral Legislature, has been left for each State to decide for itself.”
