Half of Parliament sessions since July-Aug 2001 adjourned before schedule

More than half of the Parliament sessions in the past 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.

The recently concluded Winter Session of Parliament was adjourned sine die, a day before the schedule with the government citing that it has completed the legislative business.

Since the Budget Session of 2020, all the five Parliament sessions were cut short due to Covid-19 pandemic and one due to elections in some states though not specifically stated.

The Rajya Sabha Secretariat undertook a study of the Sessions after Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu wanted a fact-sheet on the trend of early adjournments.

Sources said the study revealed that 32 of the 63 sessions, since the Monsoon Session of 2001 (193rd Session), were adjourned before schedule. While 25 sessions (40 per cent) ran a full course, six sessions (9 per cent) concluded beyond the scheduled duration.

Over the 63 Sessions, Rajya Sabha has lost a total of 108 sittings -- 7.42 per cent of the total scheduled sittings -- over the last 20 years due to early adjournments.

Also read: Winter Session ends, Centre-Opposition acrimony on

With the House meeting beyond the schedule for a total of 23 sittings in six sessions, the net loss 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 assumed power, 25 sessions were held and 14 of them fell short of the schedule accounting for 56 per cent of the total.

Three of them were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the total scheduled sittings of 507 during this period, the House lost a total of 39 sittings or 7.69 per cent of total scheduled sittings.

Rajya Sabha sat for an extra eight sittings during the 249th session.

Since 2014, sources said the analysis suggested that Rajya Sabha loses a net of about 7 per cent of the total sittings due to premature adjournments of the House and the reasons included disruptions, agreement among parties, government’s proposals, elections and the pandemic.

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