Key constitutional functions of the Parliament include:

• Electing the President and Vice President of India — through the electoral college of MPs and MLAs (as covered in the previous chapter).
• Amending the Constitution — Parliament has the power to amend most parts of the Constitution through a special procedure requiring a special majority (and sometimes ratification by state legislatures).
• Enabling parliamentary democracy through universal adult suffrage.
• Maintaining the separation of powers between the legislature, executive, and judiciary.
• Ensuring federalism — balancing the powers and interests of the Union and the States.
• Upholding Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy by framing appropriate laws and policies that give life to these constitutional guarantees.

Chart of how RTE became an Act (based on the chapter’s account):

1. Roots in the Directive Principles of State Policy (post-Independence vision for free, compulsory education)
2. Early 1990s — argued in court that the right to education is inherently part of the Fundamental Right to Life
3. 2002 — 86th Constitutional Amendment Act inserts Article 21A (free and compulsory education for children aged 6–14)
4. Bill tabled in the Rajya Sabha (six years later)
5. Studied by a Standing Committee, which suggested modifications
6. Debate on funding (schools, infrastructure, teachers)
7. 2008–2009 — MPs determine it is time to proceed; new government pursues the matter after the 2009 elections
8. Passed in the Lok Sabha in August 2009
9. Receives the President’s assent — becomes the RTE Act, 2009

If RTE had been tabled in the Lok Sabha instead: The overall process would follow the same general steps shown in Fig. 6.8 (introduction → reading → referral to a Standing Committee → clause-by-clause discussion and voting → passage in that House → the process repeated in the other House — in this case, the Rajya Sabha — → Presidential assent → Gazette notification). The only real difference is which House the bill originates in and which House it moves to next for the “process repeated” stage; since RTE was not a Money Bill, it could legally have been introduced in either House, and the essential legislative journey (committee scrutiny, debate, voting in both Houses, and Presidential assent) would remain the same.

• Who is reporting to whom? The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health & Family Welfare (a committee of MPs from the Rajya Sabha) is reporting to Parliament (presented to the Rajya Sabha and laid on the table of the Lok Sabha), based on its review of the actions taken by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (specifically the Ministry of Ayush) in response to its earlier recommendations.
• Subject reviewed: The co-location of Ayush facilities (traditional medicine services) at Primary Health Centres (PHCs), Community Health Centres (CHCs), and District Hospitals (DHs) — specifically, whether separate Ayush departments had been created in various States/UTs.
• Committee’s recommendation: The Committee noted that some States and UTs had not yet opened a separate Department of Ayush, and recommended that the Ministry of Ayush persuade these States/UTs to create such departments for the speedy development and implementation of the Ayush sector and its schemes.
• Government’s reply (Action Taken): The Ministry explained that since Public Health is a State subject, the creation of a separate Ayush Department is within the purview of the respective State/UT Governments. However, the Ministry stated it has been requesting State/UT Governments (in various meetings) to create separate directorates and deploy manpower, and reported that, as of the date of the report, a separate Ayush Directorate was already available in 24 States/UTs.

This extract is a real, concrete example of how Standing Committees hold the Executive accountable — scrutinising government action, making recommendations, and requiring a formal, documented response from the concerned Ministry.

The government spends money collected from the public — through taxes, duties, and other revenues paid by ordinary citizens and businesses. Since this is the people’s money, and the Parliament is composed of the people’s directly elected representatives, it is Parliament’s constitutional duty to ensure that:

• Public funds are spent for their intended, legitimate purposes and not wasted or misused.
• Spending priorities genuinely reflect the needs and welfare of citizens, rather than serving narrow or personal interests.
• The government remains financially accountable and transparent, since unchecked spending power could lead to corruption or misuse of taxpayers’ money.
• The budget approved by Parliament is actually followed, and any deviation is explained and justified.

This is exactly why financial accountability is listed as one of Parliament’s key functions — approving and monitoring government expenditure through the annual budget is how the people’s representatives ensure the people’s money is used responsibly.

This structuring may reflect a deliberate constitutional logic: the President, as the formal Head of State, is placed first because all constitutional authority in the Union — including the very functioning of Parliament — formally flows through and is exercised in the name of the President (who summons and can dissolve Parliament, gives assent to bills, appoints the Prime Minister, and so on).

In other words, the Constitution first establishes the office that formally represents the State and from which executive authority is derived, before detailing the legislative body (Parliament) that this executive authority works alongside and is answerable to. This ordering does not mean the Executive is “more important” than the Legislature — as the chapter emphasises throughout, the Executive is answerable to and drawn from Parliament — but rather reflects the formal constitutional sequence in which the Head of State’s role is established first, followed by the representative body that holds real democratic power and to which the Executive is accountable.

This is a genuinely interesting feature of India’s parliamentary system (as opposed to a presidential system like the USA, where the Executive and Legislature are strictly separate individuals). In India:

• The Prime Minister and Council of Ministers are indeed drawn from among the MPs of Parliament — so, in terms of personnel, the Executive overlaps with the Legislature.
• However, “separation of powers” in India does not mean the Executive and Legislature must be made up of entirely different people. Instead, it means their functions and responsibilities are kept distinct: the Legislature’s core role is making laws and holding the government accountable, while the Executive’s core role is implementing and enforcing those laws.
• Crucially, this overlap is balanced by accountability: the Council of Ministers, even though drawn from Parliament, is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha — it can be questioned (e.g. through Question Hour), scrutinised by committees, and even removed from office if it loses the confidence (majority support) of the Lok Sabha.
• The example of Lal Bahadur Shastri resigning as Railway Minister on moral grounds shows how, even as an “insider” member of Parliament, a minister remains personally and morally accountable for the exercise of executive power.

So, separation of powers in India’s parliamentary system is best understood as a functional separation (who does what) combined with strong accountability mechanisms, rather than a strict separation of personnel as in a presidential system.

What might happen if one organ had all the power:

• If the Executive alone held all power, it could implement policies without any check on fairness or legality, potentially leading to arbitrary rule, abuse of power, and the suppression of dissent — with no body to question its decisions.
• If the Legislature alone held all power (including the power to interpret and enforce its own laws), it could pass laws serving narrow political interests without any independent body checking whether those laws violate citizens’ fundamental rights.
• If the Judiciary alone held all power, unelected judges could effectively govern the country without any democratic accountability to the people, undermining the very idea of a government “by the people.”
• In every case, concentrating all power in one organ removes the checks that protect citizens from arbitrary, unfair, or unconstitutional treatment — ultimately threatening people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.

How the Legislature questions the Executive: Through mechanisms like Question Hour (where MPs can question ministers directly), Standing/special committees that scrutinise ministries’ actions, and debates during which the Executive must justify its decisions and expenditure to Parliament.

How the Judiciary checks laws and government actions: Courts can strike down (declare invalid) any law passed by Parliament, or any action taken by the Executive, if it is found to violate the Constitution — this is known as “judicial review.”

Is the Judiciary’s own action reviewed? Yes — higher courts can review the judgements of lower courts (through the appeals process), and larger benches of the Supreme Court can review earlier decisions of smaller benches. Judges are also bound by constitutional procedures for their appointment and removal, and public/media scrutiny acts as an informal check.

Examples (for students to research further): Courts have, on various occasions, struck down specific laws or provisions for violating fundamental rights, effectively sending the matter back to Parliament to reconsider or redraft the law; similarly, courts have intervened when a law was implemented in a manner inconsistent with its stated purpose or the Constitution, directing the Executive to correct its implementation. (Students are encouraged to research a specific real example relevant to their own state or a recent well-known case, using newspapers or trusted legal news sources, as this evolves regularly.)

As the chapter explains, most Indian states have a unicameral legislature (only a Vidhan Sabha/Legislative Assembly), while six states have a bicameral legislature (both a Vidhan Sabha and a Vidhan Parishad/Legislative Council):

To answer for your own state: check whether your state appears in the list above. If it does, your state has a bicameral legislature (Vidhan Sabha + Vidhan Parishad); if not, your state has a unicameral legislature (Vidhan Sabha only). Note that most Union Territories with legislatures (like Delhi and Puducherry) also have unicameral legislative assemblies.

Conclusions from the data: Even though the number of sessions per Lok Sabha term has stayed roughly similar (14–16), the number of actual sittings (working days) has fallen sharply over time — from 677 sittings in the very first Lok Sabha (1952–57) to only 356 by the 13th Lok Sabha (1999–2004), roughly a 47% decline. This suggests Parliament is meeting for fewer working days per term over the decades, even as India’s population, number of issues, and complexity of governance have all grown — a concerning trend for how much time is actually available for lawmaking and debate. (Students should research and add more recent Lok Sabha terms’ data to see if this trend has continued.)

Conclusions from the Naidu quote: The statement shows that even in relatively recent times (2004–14 and beyond), the Rajya Sabha’s “productivity” (the proportion of scheduled time actually used for productive business) has been well below 100%, and has declined further after 2014 (from about 78% to about 65%). Some sessions recorded extremely low productivity (as low as 6.80%), largely due to disruptions.

Implications for the Rajya Sabha’s role: As the “Council of States” designed to represent federal interests and provide a check on hasty lawmaking through careful deliberation, the Rajya Sabha can only fulfil this role if its sitting time is actually used for substantive debate and scrutiny. Low productivity due to disruptions means bills may get passed with less careful review, important national issues may go undiscussed, and the House may fail to hold the Executive properly accountable — undermining the very purpose for which a bicameral, deliberative Upper House was created.

This is a hands-on group research project rather than a fixed-answer question. A suggested approach:

• Compile data on your State Assembly’s number of sessions and sittings over the last few years (available from your State Legislature’s official website, PRS Legislative Research, or news reports) — and compare this to the national trends discussed above.
• Seek an appointment with your local MLA (through their constituency office) to ask about: how often the assembly meets, what typical challenges disrupt sittings (absenteeism, walkouts, protests), how bills are usually discussed, and what they see as the biggest obstacles to the assembly functioning effectively.
• Present findings as a short group report or poster, comparing your state’s legislative functioning with the national Lok Sabha data discussed earlier in the chapter, and any specific local challenges the MLA highlighted (as illustrated humorously in Fig. 6.13, disruptions and candidate scrutiny issues are common and widely discussed challenges across Indian legislatures).

Message about the role of Parliament and leaders: The quotation reminds us that individual governments, political parties, and leaders are temporary — they win elections, govern for a term, and eventually leave office or lose power. But the nation and its democratic institutions (the Constitution, Parliament, free elections, the judiciary) are meant to be permanent and must be protected regardless of who is currently in power. Leaders and parties are, in this sense, custodians of democracy for a limited time — not its owners. Their real duty is to strengthen and preserve democratic institutions for future generations, not to weaken them for short-term political gain.

Why protecting democratic values matters even when power changes:

• It ensures stability and continuity — citizens can trust that the basic rules of governance (free elections, rule of law, accountability) will remain the same no matter which party is in office.
• It prevents any single party or leader from misusing their time in power to permanently entrench themselves or dismantle the checks and balances (Legislature, Executive, Judiciary) that protect citizens’ rights.
• It preserves peaceful, orderly transitions of power — a defining feature of healthy democracies, in contrast to systems where changes of government involve conflict or force.
• It safeguards future generations’ right to a free, fair, and functioning democracy, regardless of which parties happen to be popular at any given moment in history.