Parliament: Composition, Membership and Presiding Officers

Organisation

Parliament (Articles 79–122, Part V) consists of the President, the Rajya Sabha (Council of States, the upper House) and the Lok Sabha (House of the People, the lower House). The President is not a member and does not sit in Parliament, but is an integral part of it because no bill becomes law without assent. The Rajya Sabha represents the states and UTs, while the Lok Sabha represents the people of India as a whole.

Rajya Sabha

• Maximum strength: 250 – 238 representatives of states and UTs (elected indirectly) and 12 nominated by the President for special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art and social service. Present strength is 245 (233 elected + 12 nominated).
• Seats are allocated to states by the Fourth Schedule, roughly on the basis of population – so Uttar Pradesh has 31 seats and smaller states one each. (The US Senate, by contrast, gives equal representation to every state.)
• Representatives of states are elected by the elected members of state legislative assemblies by proportional representation through single transferable vote. Since 2003 voting is by open ballot for party members, who must show their ballot to the party's authorised agent, and the requirement of domicile in the state concerned was removed (upheld in Kuldip Nayar, 2006).
• Only three UTs – Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir – have representation.
• It is a permanent body, not subject to dissolution. One-third of members retire every second year; a member's term is six years (fixed by the Representation of the People Act, 1951, not the Constitution).
• Minimum age: 30 years.

Lok Sabha

• Maximum strength: 550 – up to 530 from states and up to 20 from UTs (after the 104th Amendment, 2019 ended nomination of two Anglo-Indians from January 2020). Present strength is 543.
• Members are directly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise from territorial constituencies using the first-past-the-post system.
• Allocation of seats and delimitation of constituencies are frozen on the basis of the 1971 Census until the first census after 2026 (42nd Amendment froze allocation till 2000; the 84th Amendment extended the freeze to 2026; boundaries were readjusted on the 2001 Census by the Delimitation Commission of 2002, chaired by Justice Kuldip Singh, without changing the number of seats per state).
• Reservation for SCs and STs in proportion to their population, extended by the 104th Amendment until 2030. The 106th Amendment (2023) – Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and the Delhi assembly, to take effect after the delimitation following the first census after its commencement, for 15 years.
• Term: five years from its first meeting, unless dissolved earlier; can be extended by one year at a time during a national emergency (and not beyond six months after the emergency ends). Minimum age: 25 years.

Membership: qualifications and disqualifications

Qualifications (Article 84): Indian citizen; oath or affirmation before a person authorised by the Election Commission; minimum age (30 for RS, 25 for LS); other qualifications prescribed by Parliament – under the RPA, 1951, a person must be registered as an elector for a parliamentary constituency, and to contest a reserved seat must belong to that SC/ST.

Disqualifications (Article 102): holding an office of profit under the Union or a state government (Parliament can exempt offices by law); being of unsound mind as declared by a court; being an undischarged insolvent; not being a citizen or having voluntarily acquired foreign citizenship; or being disqualified by a law of Parliament. Under the RPA, 1951, a person convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more is disqualified from the date of conviction and for six years after release. In Lily Thomas (2013) the Supreme Court struck down Section 8(4), which had protected sitting legislators who appealed within three months – so sitting members are disqualified immediately on conviction (though a stay of conviction by an appellate court can restore membership).

Who decides? For Article 102(1) grounds, the President decides, after obtaining the opinion of the Election Commission and acting according to it. For defection (Tenth Schedule), the Chairman or Speaker decides, subject to judicial review (Kihoto Hollohan, 1992).

Other rules: a person cannot be a member of both Houses (must vacate one); a person elected to two seats in a House must resign one within 14 days, or both fall vacant; a member absent for 60 days without permission can have their seat declared vacant; members must take an oath before taking their seat.

Presiding officers

Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Elected by the Lok Sabha from among its members, usually soon after the first sitting. The Speaker vacates office on ceasing to be a member, resigns by writing to the Deputy Speaker, or is removed by a resolution passed by a majority of all the then members (effective majority) after 14 days' notice. When the Lok Sabha is dissolved, the Speaker continues until the new House meets.

Powers and role: guardian of the House's powers and privileges; maintains order and decorum; final interpreter of the Constitution, rules and precedents inside the House; adjourns the House or suspends the sitting in the absence of a quorum (one-tenth of the total strength); has a casting vote in case of a tie (does not vote in the first instance); presides over a joint sitting; decides whether a bill is a money bill – this decision is final; decides disqualification on grounds of defection; appoints chairmen of all parliamentary committees of the Lok Sabha and is chairman of the Business Advisory Committee, the Rules Committee and the General Purposes Committee; and is the ex-officio chairman of the Indian Parliamentary Group. When a resolution for removal is under consideration, the Speaker cannot preside but can speak and vote in the first instance.

Speaker pro tem – appointed by the President, usually the senior-most member, to administer the oath to new members and preside over the first sitting until the Speaker is elected.

Deputy Speaker – elected by the Lok Sabha; presides in the Speaker's absence with the same powers. By convention since the 11th Lok Sabha the post often went to the opposition, but the Constitution does not require this, and the post was left vacant throughout the 17th Lok Sabha (2019–24) – a matter of constitutional criticism, since Article 93 says the House "shall, as soon as may be", choose a Deputy Speaker.

Chairman of the Rajya Sabha – the Vice-President, ex officio. Deputy Chairman – elected by the Rajya Sabha from its members. Both have a casting vote only.

Rajya Sabha's special powers

The Rajya Sabha alone can: authorise Parliament to legislate on a State List subject in the national interest (Article 249, two-thirds of members present and voting); authorise creation of new All-India Services (Article 312); and initiate removal of the Vice-President. It also keeps an emergency proclamation alive if the Lok Sabha has been dissolved. Its unequal powers: it cannot reject or amend a money bill (only recommend within 14 days), cannot vote on demands for grants, and has no role in no-confidence motions.

Common traps

• The Rajya Sabha's 12 nominated members are for literature, science, art and social service (not sports or law expressly).
• The term of an RS member (six years) is fixed by the RPA, 1951, not the Constitution.
• Speaker resigns to the Deputy Speaker; Chairman (Vice-President) resigns to the President.
• Quorum is one-tenth of the total membership of a House.