- Opposition parties have asked the government to send seven Bills in Rajya Sabha to Parliamentary Standing Committee or Select Committees for scrutiny.
- This decision was taken as eleven of the 22 Bills introduced in the ongoing session of Parliament have been passed without any scrutiny by parliamentary standing committees.
- The Parliamentary committees are established to study and deal with various matters that cannot be directly handled by the legislature due to their volume.They also monitor the functioning of the executive branch.
- The Parliamentary committees are of two kinds.The Standing committees are elected or appointed periodically and they work on a continuous basis.
- On the other hand,Ad hoc or select committees are created on a temporary basis as the need arises and they are dissolved after they complete the task assigned to them.
- Parliamentary committees draw their authority from Article 105 (on privileges of Parliament members) and Article 118(on Parliament’s authority to make rules for regulating its procedure and conduct of business).
- The Committee reports are usually exhaustive and provide authentic information on matters related to governance.The bills that are referred to committees are returned to the House with significant value addition. Parliament is not bound by the recommendations of committees.
