When does Parliament meet? 

• India’s Parliament has no fixed calendar of sittings.  
• In 1955, a Lok Sabha committee had proposed a timetable for parliamentary sessions. It recommended that the Budget session of Parliament begin on February 1 and go on till May 7, and the Monsoon session start on July 15 and end on September 15. 
• The committee suggested that the Winter session, the last session of the year, commence on November 5 (or the fourth day after Diwali, whichever is later) and finish on December 22. 
• While the government agreed to this calendar, it was never implemented. 

Who decides when Parliament meets? 

• The government determines the date and duration of parliamentary sessions. 
•  The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs takes this decision. It currently has ten Ministers, including those for Defence, Home, Finance, Agriculture, Tribal Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs, and Information and Broadcasting 
• The Law Minister and the Minister of State for External Affairs are special invitees to the Committee. 
• The President is informed about the Committee’s decision, who then summons Members of Parliament to meet for the session. 

What does the Constitution say? 

• The Constitution specifies that six months should not elapse between two parliamentary sessions. 
•  This provision is a colonial legacy. The framers of the Constitution borrowed it from the Government of India Act of 1935. It allowed the British Governor General to call a session of the central legislature at his discretion, requiring that the gap between two sessions should not be more than 12 months 
• Dr B R Ambedkar stated that the purpose of summoning the central assembly was only to collect taxes, and the once-a-year meeting was for the government to avoid scrutiny by the legislature. The Constituent Assembly reduced the gap between sessions to six months 

Procedure of calling such Session

• Article 85(1) of the Indian Constitution stipulates the procedure for summoning Parliament.
• This constitutional provision grants the President the authority to call Parliament into session, including special sessions, as deemed necessary.

It says:

“The President shall from time to time summon each House of Parliament to meet at such time and place as he/she thinks fit, but six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session.”

How did the Constituent Assembly reach this decision? 

• Some members of the Constituent Assembly wanted Parliament to meet throughout the year with breaks in between.  
• Others wanted Parliament to sit for longer durations, and cited the examples of the British and American legislatures meeting for more than 100 days a year.  
• One member wanted the presiding officers of the two Houses to be empowered to convene Parliament under certain circumstances. 
• Dr Ambedkar did not accept these suggestions. He thought that independent India’s government would hold regular parliamentary sessions.  

How often do Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha meet? 

• Before independence, the central assembly met for a little more than 60 days a year. This number increased to 120 days a year in the first 20 years after Independence. Since then, the sitting days of the national legislature have declined. 
• Between 2002 and 2021, Lok Sabha averaged 67 working days. 
• The situation in state legislatures is much worse. In 2022, 28 state Assemblies met for 21 days on average.  
• This year, Parliament has met for 42 days so far. 
• On multiple occasions, the conference of presiding officers has recommended that Parliament should meet for more than 100 days 
• The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution set up in 2000 made a similar recommendation. 
• Individual MPs have introduced private member Bills that stipulated increased sitting days for Parliament.  
• The US Congress and parliaments of Canada, Germany, and the UK are in session throughout the year, and their calendar of sitting days is fixed at the beginning of the year. 

What is a special session of Parliament? 

• The Constitution does not use the term “special session”. The term sometimes refers to sessions the government has convened for specific occasions, like commemorating parliamentary or national milestones. 
• For the two Houses to be in session, the presiding officers should chair their proceedings. 
•  The presiding officers can also direct that the proceedings of their respective Houses would be limited and procedural devices like question hour would not be available to MPs during the sessio. 
• Article 352 (Proclamation of Emergency) of the Constitution does refer to a “special sitting of the House”. 
• Parliament added the part relating to the special sitting through the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978. Its purpose was to add safeguards to the power of proclaiming Emergency in the country 
• It specifies that if a Proclamation of Emergency is issued and Parliament is not in session, then one-tenth of Lok Sabha MPs can ask the President to convene a special meeting to disapprove the Emergency. 

Special Parliamentary sessions since Independence

• A special session of Rajya Sabha was held in February 1977 for two days for the extension of the President’s Rule in Tamil Nadu and Nagaland under the second provision to article 356(4). On June 3, 1991, another two-day session was held for approval of President’s rule in Haryana.
• In 2008 as well, when Left parties withdrew support from the then UPA government led by Manmohan Singh, a special session of Lok sabha was called for trust vote. Many special sessions and joint sittings have also been convened to commemorate national milestones like 50 years of Quit India movement, or of India’s independence.
• It was only in 2017, when for the first time, a Bill was discussed in a special session. On June 30, 2017, the Modi government had called for a joint midnight session of both the houses to roll out Goods and Services Tax (GST).