The Upper House of Parliament witnessed an interesting winter session with several disruptions and the suspension of 12 opposition members for the entire session. The House was adjourned sine die on 22 December, while the opposition continued its protest.
According to government data, the last five sessions of Parliament were adjourned before their scheduled time, with a total of 29 sittings. Out of these five sessions, at least three were lost due to the spread of Covid-19 and one because political parties wanted to go for campaigning in April.
The data also shows that these were not the only exceptions, given the fact that 51 per cent of the last 63 sessions over a span of 20 years were prematurely postponed due to a number of issues.
Concerned over the disruption in the House, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu asked the Rajya Sabha Secretariat to conduct a detailed study and research.
It was then brought to their notice that since the 193rd session held in July-August, 2001, 32 out of 63 sessions ended prematurely till the recently concluded winter session. While 25 out of 63 sessions (40 per cent) ran their full course, six sessions (9 per cent) ended beyond the stipulated period.
The Rajya Sabha has lost a total of 108 sittings (7.42 per cent of the total scheduled sittings) in the last 20 years, due to a less than scheduled calendar of meetings. With the House sitting beyond the stipulated time for a total of 23 sittings in six sessions, the net loss was 85 sittings which was 6 per cent of the total scheduled sittings of 1,455 in 20 years.
In the last seven years, 14 of the 25 sessions held since the 231st session in June 2014 have fallen short of the schedule, accounting for 56 per cent of the total. Three of them were affected by the outbreak of the pandemic. Out of the total scheduled sittings of 507 during this period, a total of 39 sittings of the House (7.69 per cent of the total scheduled sittings) were lost.
Additional eight sittings of Rajya Sabha were held during the 249th session, reducing the total loss of sittings to 31 (6 per cent of the total scheduled sittings).
The analyzed data shows that the Rajya Sabha lost about 7 per cent of the total sittings due to the premature adjournment of the House.
It is also noted that the reason behind such an adjournment includes disagreement between the parties in the House and more recently, the rise in COVID-19 cases.
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