Needed, an Indian Legislative Service

By Educrat IAS Academy | | 0 comment | 31 March, 2022 | 0

Needed, an Indian Legislative Service:

P.K. Ramacharyulu was appointment as the Secretary-General of the Upper House by M. Venkaiah Naidu, Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, on September 1, 2021.
Ramacharyulu was the first-ever Rajya Sabha secretariat staff who rose to become the Secretary-General of the Upper House.
A precedent — appointing the Secretary-General from ‘outside’ or bureaucracy, often retired — very hard to unfollow was made possible by the Chairman

Article 98 provides the scope of separate secretariats for the two Houses of Parliament.
The principle, hence, laid in the Article is that the secretariats should be independent of the executive government.
The Secretary-General, with the rank equivalent to the Cabinet Secretary, is the third most key functionary of the Rajya Sabha after the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman.

Since the first Parliament in 1952, Except for some of the lateral entry staff, who could become Secretaries-General, all the others were from the civil services or other services.
Since 1993, all the Secretaries-General of the Rajya Sabha were from the civil service till the appointment of Ramacharyulu as the 12th Secretary-General.

When civil servants are hired to the post of Secretary-General, this not only dishonours the purpose of ensuring the independence of the Secretariat but also leads to a conflict of interests.
Appointment of civil servants as secretary general breaches the principle of separation of power.
Compromises Reciprocal Supervisory Nature of Parliamentary Democracy: In a parliamentary polity, one of the roles of Parliament is to watch over the executive’s administrative behaviour.

There are thousands of legislative bodies in India, ranging from the panchayat, block panchayat, etc. Despite these mammoth law-making bodies, they lack their own common public recruiting and training agency at the national level.
A common Indian Legislative service can build a combined and experienced legislative staff cadre, enabling them to serve from across local bodies to Union Parliament. Presently, the Parliament and State legislative secretariats recruit their pool of bureaucrats separately.
The Rajya Sabha can, under Article 312, pass a resolution, in national interest, to create an all-India service common to both the Union and the States. This enables Parliament to create such a service by law.