Supreme Court of India. Supreme Court of India.

Every minute of running Parliament during the last six sessions has cost an average Rs 2.5 lakh, a petition in the Supreme Court says, calling for guidelines to ensure that Parliament functions without disruptions from its members. It says 2,162 hours was wasted in the last six sessions to disruptions. NGO Foundation for Restoration of National Values filed the petition Wednesday through advocate Ravi P Mehrotra.

It has made the central government, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, and the secretariats of the two Houses parties to it. The NGO’s advisory board comprises Justice M N Venkatachaliah, industrialist Ratan Tata and “Metro man” E Sreedharan.

“The working of the 15th Lok Sabha was disrupted frequently, making the productivity of the 15th Lok Sabha the worst in the last 50 years. Disruptions during the term of the 15th Lok Sabha resulted in the Lok Sabha working for 61% and the Rajya Sabha for 66% of its scheduled time, according to… a study by PRS Legislative Search,” the petition said.

“The life blood of parliamentary democracy in this country has been facing severe disruptions in its functioning from the representatives of the people, thereby gravely affecting the public and national interest, sullying the name and reputation of this august institution, and resulting in crores of public money being wasted.”

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