When the Monsoon Session of Parliament concluded on 13 August 2026, the Lok Sabha had functioned for just 15 percent of its scheduled time. Question Hour, Parliament’s principal mechanism for securing ministerial accountability on the floor of the House, ran for a cumulative nine minutes across 19 sittings, during which only two questions were answered orally. The Lok Sabha passed eleven Bills, excluding Finance and Appropriation Bills, yet in only two cases did anyone other than the minister speak in the House.
These figures reflect a persistent weakening of legislative scrutiny. Disruption compounds the problem, alongside fewer sittings, curtailed debate and limited committee examination. Making constructive participation more visible could help strengthen the political incentives to scrutinise.
A Pattern, Not an Anomaly
Data compiled by PRS Legislative Research indicate that the session was part of a longer pattern rather than an outlier. The first Lok Sabha met for about 135 days a year; the 17th Lok Sabha (2019–24) averaged about 55. During the 17th Lok Sabha, 35 percent of Bills were passed with less than an hour of debate, while only 16 percent were referred to parliamentary committees. Between 2019 and 2023, roughly 80 percent of budgeted expenditure was approved without discussion of the relevant demands for grants; in 2023, all demands for grants were approved without discussion.
The pattern extends to state legislatures: in 2025, state assemblies met for an average of 24 days, 30 percent of Bills were passed on the day they were introduced, and only 5 percent were referred to committees.
Where Responsibility Lies
Responsibility lies in part with the treasury benches. Governments have substantial influence over when the House meets, for how long and what business it takes up. Decisions to curtail debate or bypass committee scrutiny can constrain legislative deliberation. The opposition’s response, however, can compound the problem when slogans in the well, repeated adjournments or walkouts displace participation in the legislative process.
Protest and walkouts remain legitimate forms of democratic dissent. The difficulty arises when they replace parliamentary work rather than augmenting it.
Legislatures provide minorities with institutional tools to influence outcomes they cannot determine: questions put ministers on record, amendments place alternatives before the House, and committees enable members to examine Bills with evidence from experts and officials.
When Responsibility Meets Incentives
Appeals to parliamentary responsibility are unlikely to change behaviour when the incentives facing legislators remain unchanged. A walkout can generate immediate political and media attention, while a carefully drafted amendment or a sustained line of questioning in committee rarely receives comparable visibility. The political returns to detailed scrutiny are less immediate and harder for constituents to observe.
Yet extended deliberation remains possible within the existing parliamentary framework. Both Houses worked beyond their scheduled time during the 2025 Winter Session. In the 2026 Monsoon Session, the Lok Sabha devoted nearly 11 hours to the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, with 48 members participating.
Making Scrutiny Visible
The UK House of Commons publicly discloses which MPs have completed Behaviour Code training, making compliance with an institutional expectation visible. This does not establish that disclosure improves legislative debate, but it offers a precedent for using transparency to reinforce behavioural expectations. A similar approach could be tested in India by making participation in legislative scrutiny more visible.
Three measures could test whether such visibility changes legislative behaviour.
First, a scrutiny statement could accompany every Bill, recording the time devoted to debate, the number of members who spoke and their party affiliation, the amendments moved, and whether the Bill was referred to a parliamentary committee. Much of this information is already held by the legislative Secretariats. Publishing it would give citizens a clearer account of the scrutiny a Bill received and the participation of both treasury and opposition benches.
Second, a periodic participation note could be sent to each member, setting out their questions, interventions, amendments and committee attendance alongside their own previous record and an appropriate House benchmark. PRS already compiles much of this information; the proposed innovation is to feed it back directly to members through the Secretariat and test whether it changes participation.
Third, a constituency-facing version could provide a short, plain-language summary of each member’s participation during the session, helping constituents assess their representative’s legislative work.
The measures could be tested through a one-session pilot by a Speaker or a willing state assembly, with phased implementation across committees or participating members allowing their effects to be evaluated. The assessment would need to distinguish members’ choices from the opportunities available to them: low participation may reflect curtailed debate, repeated adjournments or limited access to speaking time.
Crude metrics could invite gaming, with members filing perfunctory questions to inflate their activity counts. Ranking members could also turn the exercise into a partisan scorecard. The pilot should therefore report activity without ranking members, capture multiple forms of participation, and be designed with both treasury and opposition benches. The test is whether making scrutiny more visible encourages sustained participation when opportunities to scrutinise are available.