Two houses, one Parliament: Lok Sabha vs Rajya Sabha, sessions and devices

Parliament does its daily work in two very different rooms: the Lok Sabha, which carries the people's mandate and can bring down a government, and the Rajya Sabha, which carries the states' voice and can delay and revise. This article maps both Houses, their sessions, their presiding officers, and the devices, from Question Hour to the no-confidence motion, through which Parliament holds the executive to account.

Two chambers, two different ideas of representation

The Lok Sabha embodies the democratic principle: directly elected by universal adult franchise (Article 326), it alone can make or break governments. The Rajya Sabha embodies the federal principle: elected by the state legislative assemblies, it gives the states a voice in national law-making. Nehru called it the voice of reason and sobriety, a revising chamber meant to check hasty legislation.

The Houses are deliberately unequal: the Lok Sabha prevails in financial matters, no-confidence motions and joint sittings, while the Rajya Sabha compensates with special powers under Articles 249 (State List legislation) and 312 (new All-India Services), and alone initiates the Vice-President's removal.

Who sits where: composition and terms

The Lok Sabha's composition is fixed by Article 81: not more than 530 members from the states and 20 from the Union Territories; the present strength is 543, after the 104th Amendment (2019) abolished the two Anglo-Indian seats. Members serve five years from the House's first meeting (Article 83(2)) unless dissolved earlier, with extensions of one year at a time possible only during a National Emergency.

The Rajya Sabha's composition is fixed by Article 80: not more than 238 representatives of the states and Union Territories, plus 12 members nominated by the President for special knowledge of literature, science, art and social service; the present strength is 245. State representatives are elected by state assemblies through the single transferable vote. The House is permanent and never dissolved (Article 83(1)); one-third retire every two years, giving six-year terms.

Article 84 requires citizenship, a minimum age of 25 for the Lok Sabha and 30 for the Rajya Sabha, plus qualifications prescribed by Parliament. Article 102 disqualifies for office of profit, unsoundness of mind, undischarged insolvency and defection.

When Parliament meets: the three sessions and the six-month rule

Article 85(1) gives the President the power to summon each House, with one hard constraint: no more than six months may pass between the last sitting of one session and the first sitting of the next. In practice Parliament meets in three sessions a year: the Budget Session (February to May), the Monsoon Session (July-August) and the Winter Session (November-December). The vocabulary is precise: a sitting is a single day's meeting, a session runs from the first sitting to prorogation, and recess is a break within a session. The Constitution prescribes no minimum number of sitting days in a year; the six-month cap on the inter-session gap is the only floor. Special sessions called outside the three regular ones have no mention in the Constitution at all.

The calendar matters: the 17th Lok Sabha averaged only 55 sitting days a year against the 110 recommended by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2002), and between 2019 and 2023 about 80 percent of the Budget passed without discussion.

How sittings end: adjournment, prorogation and dissolution

Adjournment ends a sitting and is ordered by the presiding officer; an adjournment sine die names no next day. Prorogation ends a session and is ordered by the President. Dissolution ends the Lok Sabha's life itself; only the Lok Sabha can be dissolved, never the Rajya Sabha.

On prorogation no bill lapses, though all pending notices and non-bill business do. The President may prorogue the House even while it is in session. On dissolution, bills pending in the Lok Sabha lapse, as do bills passed by the Lok Sabha and pending in the Rajya Sabha; bills pending in the Rajya Sabha but not passed by the Lok Sabha survive, as do bills awaiting assent and bills on which a joint sitting has been notified. Quorum is one-tenth of total membership (Article 100); decisions are by majority of those present and voting, the presiding officer casting a vote only to break a tie.

The people in the big chairs

Article 93 requires the Lok Sabha to choose a Speaker and Deputy Speaker. The Speaker presides, maintains order, admits questions and motions, certifies Money Bills (Article 110, final), presides over joint sittings (Article 118(4)) and decides Tenth Schedule disqualifications. Removal needs a resolution by a majority of all then members with fourteen days' notice (Article 94); the Speaker continues past dissolution until the new House meets. The 17th Lok Sabha was the first to complete its term without a Deputy Speaker.

In the Rajya Sabha the Vice-President is ex-officio Chairman (Article 64), and the House elects a Deputy Chairman from its members (Article 89). Each House keeps a panel of chairpersons to preside in the officers' absence, and a Speaker pro tem appointed by the President administers the oath to new members.

Question Hour and Zero Hour: the daily accountability ritual

Question Hour is the first hour of a sitting day (11 am to 12 noon). It dates to the Indian Councils Act of 1892, which first gave legislators the right to put questions to the government. Starred questions are answered orally with supplementaries allowed; unstarred questions get written answers; short-notice questions (under ten days' notice) are answered orally. PRS data shows it functioned for only 60 percent of scheduled time in the Lok Sabha and 52 percent in the Rajya Sabha.

Zero Hour begins after Question Hour, around 12 noon. Introduced in 1962, it is an informal Indian innovation absent from the Rules of Procedure: members raise urgent matters without prior notice. A half-hour discussion can also be raised on a matter arising from a question, with three days' notice.

Motions: the vocabulary of floor control

The most consequential motion is no-confidence: under Article 75(3) the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha, so it can be moved only there. It needs 50 members' support for admission, and the government must resign if it passes. Notably, the no-confidence motion is not mentioned in the Constitution at all and needs no stated reason. The first was moved by Acharya Kripalani against Nehru in 1963; one was moved in 2023 over Manipur.

An adjournment motion suspends business for a definite matter of urgent public importance; it needs 50 members' support, involves censure, the debate must last at least 2 hours 30 minutes, and only one is admitted per day. A censure motion expresses disapproval without requiring resignation, and unlike no-confidence it can target an individual minister or the whole Council. Closure motions cut short debate and come in four varieties: simple closure (a vote on the matter at hand), closure by compartments (clause-by-clause voting), kangaroo closure (only the important clauses debated and voted), and the guillotine (all outstanding demands voted together on the last allotted day). A calling-attention motion seeks a minister's statement with no voting; a privilege motion alleges a breach of privilege with the presiding officer's consent. A motion of thanks on the President's address is moved after each session's opening address, and its rejection amounts to the defeat of the government. A short-duration discussion, raised with the presiding officer's consent, is capped at two hours with no voting at the end.

The Fourth Schedule and the Leader of the Opposition

The Fourth Schedule is the seat-allocation table for the Rajya Sabha: it fixes how many of the 233 elected seats go to each state and Union Territory (Uttar Pradesh's 31 is the largest share). Every Rajya Sabha composition number in this article traces back to it.

The Leader of the Opposition is the leader of the largest opposition party in the House, recognised by the presiding officer. Two facts anchor the office: the 10 per cent convention, by which a party needs roughly one-tenth of the House's strength to claim the status, and the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977, which gave the office statutory recognition and Cabinet-rank equivalence.

Privileges without a code: where Parliament's powers end

The Constitution gives each House privileges but never codified them: Article 105(3) kept the powers of the House of Commons as they stood at commencement until Parliament defines its own. The Supreme Court finally drew the boundary in Sita Soren v. Union of India (2024), overruling the JMM bribery case doctrine: bribery is not protected by privilege because taking a bribe is not an act in respect of anything said or any vote given. The test is now two-fold: the privilege covers what is said or voted in the House, and criminal acts, even if connected to speech or voting, fall outside it.

The Speaker: referee, decider and party member

The Speaker is the guardian of the House's powers, privileges and immunities, and the office concentrates extraordinary power in one person: certifying Money Bills, deciding disqualification questions under the Tenth Schedule, and casting the casting vote on ties. In Kihoto Hollohan (1992) the Court upheld the Speaker's role as the Tenth Schedule's adjudicator while keeping it open to judicial review; in Nabam Rebia (2016) it barred a Speaker facing a removal motion from deciding disqualification petitions.

The structural criticism is that the Speaker contests on a party ticket and remains a party member while refereeing the House, which is why the British convention, Once a Speaker, Always a Speaker, keeps being proposed and never adopted in India.

The thinning of scrutiny: fewer sittings, fewer referrals

The numbers tell a quiet story. Lok Sabha sittings have fallen from the early-decade average of well over a hundred days a year to roughly 60-70 days in recent years, and the share of bills sent to Departmentally Related Standing Committees has collapsed from over 70% in the 15th Lok Sabha to the low single digits in recent sessions. Question Hour is frequently disrupted, and Money Bill certification has been used to bypass the Rajya Sabha on contested legislation. The decline of scrutiny is now a standard mains theme: a Parliament that meets less, refers less and debates less delegates more.

Prelims hooks

• Lok Sabha: Article 81, max 530 + 20, present strength 543; Rajya Sabha: Article 80, max 250 (238 + 12 nominated), present strength 245.
• Rajya Sabha is permanent and never dissolved (Article 83(1)); one-third retire every two years; six-year terms.
• Article 85: President summons the Houses; maximum gap between two sessions is six months. Three sessions: Budget, Monsoon, Winter.
• Adjournment ends a sitting, prorogation ends a session (no bill lapses), dissolution ends the Lok Sabha; on dissolution, bills pending in the Lok Sabha lapse but bills pending only in the Rajya Sabha survive.
• Speaker: Article 93; removal needs a majority of all then members with 14 days' notice (Article 94); continues after dissolution until the new House meets; certifies Money Bills (Article 110).
• Question Hour 11 am to 12 noon: starred (oral + supplementaries), unstarred (written), short notice (less than 10 days, oral). Zero Hour from 12 noon needs no notice and is not in the rules.
• No-confidence motion: Lok Sabha only, 50 members' support for admission, government must resign if passed (Article 75(3)); not mentioned in the Constitution, needs no reason. Adjournment motion: 50 members, definite matter of urgent public importance, involves censure, minimum 2 hours 30 minutes of debate.
• Closure: four types, simple, by compartments, kangaroo, guillotine. Censure can target one minister or the whole Council, unlike no-confidence.
• Question Hour traces to the Indian Councils Act, 1892; Zero Hour was introduced in 1962. Motion of thanks rejection = defeat of the government; short-duration discussion capped at two hours, no voting.
• Prorogation lapses pending notices and non-bill business (no bill lapses); the President can prorogue even while the House is in session.
• Joint sitting (Article 108): presided over by the Speaker; used only three times, in 1961 (Dowry Prohibition), 1978 (Banking Service Commission Repeal) and 2002 (POTA).

Mains angle

A GS-2 question on Parliament's Houses is about the health of representative democracy. Start from the design: a directly elected Lok Sabha that makes and unmakes governments, paired with a permanent Rajya Sabha that voices the states and revises hasty legislation. Then measure design against working: sittings below the NCRWC's 110-day norm, Question Hour at 60 percent, 80 percent of the Budget undebated, and the Rajya Sabha bypassed via the Money Bill route. Close with institutional fixes: minimum sitting days, mandatory committee referral, and restoring the Deputy Speaker's office.

Key Terms

• Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977: The Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977 (Act 33 of 1977) gave the Leader of the Opposition statutory recognition in India. It defines the LoP as the leader of the largest opposition party recognised by the Speaker or Chairman, and entitles the office-holder to salary and allowances. For UPSC, the Act is the legal anchor of mains answers on the LoP's role in appointments and parliamentary accountability. brought into force on 1 November 1977
• The Leader of the Opposition is: The Leader of the Opposition is the head of the largest opposition party in a legislature, given statutory recognition in India by the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977. By convention, the party must hold at least one-tenth of the House's strength to claim the post. It matters for UPSC because the LoP sits on key selection panels, such as those for the CVC and the CIC. Rahul Gandhi became Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha in June 2024
• Indian Councils Act of 1892: The Indian Councils Act of 1892 expanded the central and provincial legislative councils, allowed indirect election of some non-official members through local bodies and universities, and permitted members to discuss the annual budget and ask questions. It matters for UPSC because it marks the first, limited introduction of the elective principle in Indian legislatures. Nationalists dismissed its indirect and nominated-heavy membership as inadequate, a criticism that fed the demand for the more generous Morley-Minto reforms of 1909.
• Indian Councils Act, 1892: The Indian Councils Act, 1892 expanded the central and provincial legislative councils and introduced the principle of indirect election to them. Members could discuss the budget and ask questions, though the official majority remained intact. For UPSC it marks the first cautious step toward representative institutions after the 1861 Act. Moderates welcomed it as proof of constitutional agitation's value. The Act's elective principle was invoked by moderates as evidence that petitions and resolutions could extract reforms.
• 10 per cent convention: The 10 per cent convention is the parliamentary practice that a party or group must hold at least one-tenth of the House's strength to be recognized as the official opposition and claim the post of Leader of the Opposition. It rests on the Speaker's rulings and the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977. It matters for GS-2 on parliamentary democracy. After the 2014 election the Congress, with 44 seats in a 543-member Lok Sabha, was denied the Leader of the Opposition post for falling below the threshold.
• The Fourth Schedule is: The Fourth Schedule is the constitutional schedule that allocates seats in the Rajya Sabha among the states and union territories. Under Article 80, its allocation is broadly proportional to each unit's population, distributing 238 elected seats accordingly. It matters because representation debates, delimitation demands and proposals for Rajya Sabha reform turn on this allocation, making it a precise prelims fact and a mains hook on federal representation. Uttar Pradesh is allotted 31 Rajya Sabha seats
• Banking Service Commission: The Banking Service Commission was conceived as a UPSC-like statutory body for recruiting officers to public sector banks. The 1975 Act creating it was repealed in 1978 before it could function, and Banking Service Recruitment Boards handled hiring instead; a revived Commission under the 1984 Act was wound up by the 2003 repeal. Recruitment is now done by individual banks, with the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection conducting common examinations. It is a UPSC case study in institutional churn. IBPS's Common Recruitment Process now fills probationary officer and clerk posts in public sector banks.
• The 104th Amendment: The 104th Amendment is the constitutional amendment that came into force on 25 January 2020, discontinuing the reservation of seats for Anglo-Indians in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies while extending reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for a further ten years, up to 25 January 2030. It left Articles 330 and 332 otherwise intact. For UPSC, it is a frequently tested GS-2 polity amendment on the reservation timeline. The extension of SC/ST reservation to 25 January 2030
• collective responsibility: Collective responsibility is the constitutional doctrine, under Article 75(3), that the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha, meaning the whole ministry stands or falls together on the government's policies. Its features are cabinet solidarity and joint accountability. It matters for UPSC because prelims tests Article 75(3) and mains links it to no-confidence motions and parliamentary accountability. the Vajpayee government's defeat in the 1999 confidence vote
• adult franchise: Adult franchise, or universal adult suffrage, is the right of every adult citizen to vote irrespective of property, education, gender, or caste, guaranteed in India by Article 326 and first exercised in the general elections of 1951-52. It made India one of the earliest large democracies to adopt full suffrage at independence. It matters for UPSC because Article 326, the Election Commission, and electoral reforms are core polity topics. First general elections, 1951-52
• Tenth Schedule: The Tenth Schedule is the anti-defection law of the Constitution, inserted by the 52nd Amendment in 1985. It disqualifies legislators who voluntarily give up party membership or vote against the party whip, with exemptions for mergers backed by two-thirds of members and for presiding officers. The presiding officer decides disqualification petitions, subject to judicial review after Kihoto Hollohan (1992). For UPSC, it is a staple of GS-2 polity, tested on disqualification grounds and the Speaker's role. Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), which upheld the Schedule
• Article 118(4: Article 118(4) provides that at a joint sitting of the two Houses, the Speaker of the House of the People, or in his absence such person as determined by rules made under Article 118(3), shall preside. The Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the Vice-President, does not preside over joint sittings. For UPSC, link it with Article 108, which provides for the joint sitting to resolve deadlocks on ordinary Bills, excluding Money and Constitution Amendment Bills. The joint sittings of 1961, 1978 and 2002 were all presided over by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Practice questions

Beyond Delhi: the state legislatures (Articles 168 to 201)

Part VI mirrors Parliament at the state level. Article 168 gives every state a legislature consisting of the Governor plus the Legislative Assembly; six states add a Legislative Council: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. The rest are unicameral.

• Article 169: Parliament may create or abolish a Legislative Council if the state's assembly passes a resolution by special majority; Parliament then gives effect by ordinary law.
• Articles 170 and 171: assemblies are directly elected, with a maximum of 500 and minimum of 60 members (smaller minima for Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Goa, Mizoram and Nagaland); councils are indirectly elected and cannot exceed one-third of the assembly's strength.
• Article 172: the assembly has a five-year term from its first meeting, while the council is a permanent body with one-third of members retiring every two years.
• Articles 199 to 201: money bills in the states follow the Union scheme, and the Governor may assent, withhold assent, return the bill (except a money bill) or reserve it for the President, whose own options run through Article 201.

The working parts: secretariat, language and the Leader of the House

• Article 98: Secretariat of Parliament: each House has its own secretarial staff. Parliament may regulate recruitment and service conditions by law; until it does, the President makes rules after consulting the Speaker or the Chairman.
• Article 120: Language in Parliament: Hindi and English are the languages for transacting business in Parliament, and members may speak in their mother tongue with the presiding officer's permission. English was to end as a floor language in 1965, but the Official Languages Act, 1963 continued it alongside Hindi.
• Leader of the House: in the Lok Sabha the Prime Minister is the Leader of the House, or a minister nominated by the PM; in the Rajya Sabha it is a minister of that House nominated by the PM. The office is not mentioned in the Constitution; it is defined in the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business.