Revision summary
Article 75(3) is the ultimate control: the Council lives by Lok Sabha confidence. Question Hour, adjournment, and debates are the daily political methods. The budget, appropriation, and cut motions are financial control. PAC, Estimates, COPU, and DRSCs specialise scrutiny with CAG reports. A whipped majority, ordinances, and money-bill practice weaken the floor. Committees become the working teeth when no-confidence is politically distant.
Model answer
Introduction
Parliamentary government means the executive sits in the legislature and lives by its confidence. Control is therefore political, financial, and committee-based, not a separation-of-powers veto. The methods are real on paper and uneven when a majority is tight-whipped.
Body
Collective responsibility
- Article 75(3) makes the Council of Ministers collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha; a no-confidence motion is the ultimate method of control.
- Individual responsibility, questions to a minister, and the Prime Minister’s duty to keep the House informed sit on the same chain.
- Defeat on a money bill or a cut motion that the government treats as confidence can also force resignation.
Everyday political control
- Question Hour, including starred, unstarred, and short-notice questions, forces files into the open.
- Zero Hour, adjournment motions, calling attention, half-hour discussions, and motions of thanks on the Address keep the executive on a daily leash.
- Debates on bills, ordinances under Article 123 that must be laid, and sunset of ordinances if not replaced, are legislative brakes.
Financial control
- No tax or expenditure without parliamentary authority: Annual Financial Statement, demands for grants, Appropriation Act, and Finance Act.
- Cut motions, guillotine, and the rule that the executive cannot spend without appropriation are the purse strings.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General’s reports, examined by the Public Accounts Committee, turn post-spend audit into political heat.
Committee control
- Public Accounts Committee, Estimates Committee, and Committee on Public Undertakings specialise the House’s financial eye.
- Departmentally Related Standing Committees examine demands and bills; the Committee on Privileges and ethics panels police ministerial conduct.
- Consultative committees and informal party meetings are weaker, yet they still extract explanations.
Limits of the methods
- A stable majority and the anti-defection whip can turn Question Hour into theatre and make no-confidence rare.
- Ordinances, delegated legislation, and money-bill routing can shrink discussion.
- Rajya Sabha cannot vote the government out, so control is Lok Sabha-centred.
- Discussion must therefore treat committees and the CAG as the working teeth when the floor is whipped.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD C[Art 75 collective responsibility] --> E[Executive] Q[Questions motions] --> E B[Budget appropriation] --> E P[PAC Estimates COPU CAG] --> E
Conclusion
Parliament controls the executive through collective responsibility, questions and motions, the budget process, and financial committees aided by the CAG. Those methods are the core of Indian parliamentary democracy; their bite depends on majority arithmetic and committee seriousness, not on the rulebook alone.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Analyse the problems that have restricted the successes of Panchayati Raj System in India. How far has the Seventy-Third Constitutional Amendment been successful in countering these problems?
Next question in the 2021 paper (Q16). View answer →
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Can Rajya Sabha remove the Council of Ministers?
No. Collective responsibility is to the Lok Sabha. Rajya Sabha can still delay ordinary bills, question ministers, and use committees.
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Is Question Hour enough to control the executive?
It is necessary publicity. Without budget votes and PAC follow-up it does not by itself change a determined majority government.
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