Parliamentary Committees

Explanation :

• Parliamentary committees draw their authority from Article 105 (on privileges of Parliament members) and Article 118 (on Parliament’s authority to make rules for regulating its procedure and conduct of business).

Origin

• In India, the first Public Accounts Committee was constituted in April 1950.
• The practice of regularly referring bills to committees began in 1989 after government departments started forming their own standing committees.
• Prior to that, select committees or joint committees of the houses were only set up to scrutinise in detail some very important bills, but this was few and far between.

Significance

• Committee reports are usually exhaustive and provide authentic information on matters related to governance.
• Bills that are referred to committees are returned to the House with significant value addition.
• However, Parliament is not bound by the recommendations of committees.