Reform in Practice: Chakshu Roy (PRS) on Deregulating the Rajya Sabha

What is one area of regulation in India that should be deregulated?

Very often when we think of deregulation, we think of economic areas. We think of the Factories Act, we think of labor codes, we think of laws that can be changed to make industry and economics that much more easier. One of the things that I was thinking of looking at was, how do you think of deregulation when it comes to institutions? The area  that I work in and me and my colleagues work in is the Parliament and the Legislatures of India.

My name is Chakshu, I work at PRS Legislative Research. We are a research organization that provides non-partisan research to MPs and MLAs. When we think of the institution of legislature, both at the national level and the state level, one key constraint that comes when it is about having conversations  on a range of subjects is how those conversations are structured.

For example, let's say if we are talking about deregulation in states, then Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha play a key role there. Rajya Sabha more because Rajya Sabha is the Council of States where MPs representing different states come to Delhi and raise the concerns that the state has. Now, over the years, what has happened  is that MPs' ability to contribute to that debate in an effective manner has been regulated heavily.

Let me start with an example which is a pre-1991 example. In 1985, the Indian Parliament passed what is popularly called the Anti-Defection Law. What it does is that it limits Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha  MPs from speaking out on issues that they feel passionately about, which might deviate from how their political party is thinking about the issue.

Now, the purpose of the law was to bring stability to governments. Ideally, in an ideal environment, it should have been limited only to Lok Sabha MPs and Lok Sabha is the house where governments are made and governments fall.  The 1985 amendment was extended both to Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and Rajya Sabha has no role in the formation of a government.

Now, cut to post-1991 scenario. Then what we did in 2002 was Parliament enacted a law which removed the domicile requirements for election to Rajya Sabha. Earlier, what used to happen was that an  individual from a particular state would get elected from that state. Obviously, there were loopholes to get around that, but by 2002, it was said that anybody could get onto a Rajya Sabha seat from anywhere in the country. So that was step one.

The other thing that happened was that part of the constitutional amendment was that Rajya Sabha elections were no more closed voting elections. They were open  elections. What that means is that when MLAs were going to vote in a Rajya Sabha election, they had to show their ballot to their political party representative. Now, what that means is that if your party tells you, officially or unofficially, to vote in a particular manner for a Rajya Sabha candidate and you have to show your voting slip before you actually go and vote, which means that you are not really representing  or electing "a state's representative." You are electing possibly political party's representative. 

If you couple removal of the domicile requirements and open Rajya Sabha election, what it did was that it transformed the nature of Rajya Sabha from an institution that was supposed to represent states' voices, and these voices could be  about how could states be deregulated in different areas.

Now, what you had was post-2002, you had members of Parliament coming to Rajya Sabha where on paper they were representing their states, but if you look back at the history of how they were elected and how that election was regulated, they were representing their political parties. Now, in the larger scheme of things,  such kind of regulation is never good for an institution's vibrancy.

One area that I think when we think of deregulation is, can we deregulate the way at least Rajya Sabha MPs are elected and make sure that there is no anti-defection law on them so that Rajya Sabha MPs are able  to speak freely about issues around states or issues around deregulation in the upper house, which is a continuing house. Lok Sabha is a house which is a popular opinion house. It can change. Obviously, the anti-defection law needs to go away from there as well, but more importantly for Rajya Sabha because in Rajya Sabha it is not needed. The reasoning for "deregulating" MPs in Rajya Sabha is that much more direct  than anything else.