{"id":17351,"date":"2023-09-19T18:06:49","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T12:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/?p=17351"},"modified":"2023-09-19T18:06:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T12:36:52","slug":"parliamentary-secretariat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/19-09-2023\/parliamentary-secretariat","title":{"rendered":"Parliamentary Secretariat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/ Parliament &amp; State Legislatures, Conduct of Business, Structure &amp; Functioning<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">In News<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Vithalbhai Patel<\/strong>, who in <strong>1925 <\/strong>became the <strong>first elected Speaker<\/strong> (then called the President) of the Central Assembly, championed the <strong>idea of a separate secretariat for the legislature<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">About Parliamentary Secretariat<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Origin: <\/strong>Vithalbhai Patel believed that if the office of the Speaker had to work independently, it needed a staff directly under its control.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Patel also pushed for a <strong>separate security establishment<\/strong> for the legislature.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Rules of procedure: <\/strong>Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha rules of procedure require that the \u201cSecretary-General shall cause to be prepared a<strong> full report<\/strong> of the <strong>proceedings of the House at each of its sittings<\/strong> and shall, as soon as practicable, publish it in such form and manner\u201d as directed by the presiding officer.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The rule\u2019s genesis lies in an<strong> 1861 communication<\/strong> from the <strong>Secretary of State for India<\/strong> to the Governor General.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Functions: Advises presiding officers<\/strong> of the two Houses,\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Provides MPs with information to aid their legislative interventions and&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ensures that the legislature functions smoothly.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It has also been the custodian of procedure, precedent, legislative knowledge and their transfer across parliamentary terms.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Structuring the secretariats: <\/strong>The <strong>nature of parliamentary work<\/strong> meant different work streams in the Parliament secretariats.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In <strong>1974<\/strong>, a committee of MPs recommended structuring the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats into 11 functional areas, like\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>legislative (dealing with the work of the Houses),&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>library research and information,&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>verbatim reporting, editorial and translation,&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Interpretation, printing and publication, and&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Watch and ward (renamed Parliament Security) service.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Staff &amp; Services: <\/strong>With administrative consolidation, the roughly <strong>2,200 Lok Sabha and 1,500 Rajya Sabha secretariat officers <\/strong>are organised into <strong>eight services<\/strong>.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Constitution specifies that Parliament could make a law<strong> to regulate the recruitment and conditions of service<\/strong> of persons appointed to the secretarial staff of Parliament.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But<strong> Parliament has made no such law<\/strong>; therefore, these are done according to the <strong>rules made by the presiding officers<\/strong> of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Independence of office: <\/strong>While the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats are independent of the government, the same is not valid for state legislature secretariats.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Secretary General remains in office till his\/her retirement at the age of 60.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He\/she is answerable only to the Speaker, his action cannot be discussed or criticised in or outside the Lok Sabha.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">About Secretary-Generals<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Appointment of Secretary-Generals: Two Secretary-Generals<\/strong>, one for Lok Sabha and the other for Rajya Sabha, are at the helm of the respective secretariats.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>presiding officers of the two Houses<\/strong> have discretion in<strong> appointing the Secretary-General<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For example, <strong>the Rajya Sabha recruitment order <\/strong>specifies that the Chairperson of Rajya Sabha shall make the appointment to the post of the Secretary-General. The order also empowers the presiding officer of Rajya Sabha to fill senior positions like that of Secretary\/Additional Secretary by \u201cpersons of equivalent stature and experience from other sources on contract basis\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Roles of Secretary-Generals: <\/strong>Secretary-Generals aid and advise the presiding officers of the two Houses in discharging their constitutional and statutory responsibilities.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Parliamentary Pay Committee, in its 2009 report<\/strong>, described the role of the Secretary-General. The position of the Secretary-General has <strong>dual obligations:<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Rendering advice to the Presiding Officer as well as the House on all matters relating to the running of the House and its Committees and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Being the Secretary-General of the Secretariat of the House.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the latter role, he <strong>acts as the head of the administration.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Position of Secretary-Generals: <\/strong>The position was earlier equivalent to the post of the Secretary of the Government of India.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>But considering its importance in 1990, the pay scale, position and status of the post of Secretary-General was made equivalent to that of the post of the Cabinet Secretary in the Government of India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: TH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syllabus: GS2\/ Parliament &amp; State Legislatures, Conduct of Business, Structure &amp; Functioning In News About Parliamentary Secretariat About Secretary-Generals Source: TH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17352,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351\/revisions\/17352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}