New Delhi: More than half of Parliament sessions in the last 20 years were adjourned before the scheduled date of closure, with the Rajya Sabha losing 108 sittings, research by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has shown.
Since the 2020 budget session, all five Parliament sessions were cut short due to the Covid-19 pandemic and due to elections in some states, though not specifically stated.
The Rajya Sabha Secretariat studied the sessions after Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu sought a fact sheet on the tendency for early adjournments.
The recently concluded winter session of Parliament was adjourned sine die, with the government saying it had completed the legislative work.
Sources said the study showed that since the 2001 monsoon session (193rd session), 32 out of 63 sessions were postponed prematurely. While 25 sessions (40 per cent) ran a full course, six sessions (9 per cent) ended beyond the stipulated period.
In 63 sessions, the Rajya Sabha has lost a total of 108 sittings – 7.42 per cent of the total scheduled sittings – due to early adjournments in the last 20 years.
With the House sitting beyond the stipulated time for a total of 23 sittings in six sessions, the net deficit in sittings was 85 or 6 per cent of the total scheduled sittings of 1,455 over 20 years.
In the last seven years since 2014, when Narendra Modi took over, 25 sessions were held and 14 of them did not account for 56 per cent of the total time.
Three of them were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Out of the total scheduled sittings of 507 during this period, the House lost a total of 39 sittings or 7.69 per cent of the total scheduled sittings.
Eight additional sittings of Rajya Sabha were held during the 249th session.
Since 2014, sources said analysis suggested that the Rajya Sabha lost around 7 per cent of the total sittings due to premature adjournment of the House and due to disruptions, compromise between parties, government resolutions, elections and pandemic. were involved.
