The union urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy on Tuesday warned that nearly a fourth of the members of the Lok Sabha could harbour a conflict of interest with the house's business, quoting a study.  "When rich people come into Parliament, can you avoid a conflict of interest," was the minister's rhetorical poser at the release of the Citizen's report on governance and development 2010, based on a study conducted by the National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC).

The NSWC report said, “One hundred and twenty-eight out of 543 members in the 15th Lok Sabha belong to the industrialist/trader/businessperson/builder category, which potentially forms conflict of interest.”

The report also gave few examples of conflict of interest in the  Rajya Sabha. “CPI (M) Brinda Karat opposed industrialist Rahul Bajaj asking a question relating to automobile industry regarding the steps taken by the finance ministry to ameliorate the problems faced by the industry during the financial crisis,” the report cited from the proceedings of the house on December 15, 2008.

Karat had also sought reconsideration of Rule 294, Clause 1 under which a member can declare conflict of interest before they speak. “Given the reality that industrialists and/or their associates/employees are honourable members of the House, it has become a common occurrence and will therefore extend from conflict of interest to a conflict of dignity of the house,” she had said.

The report also mentioned that membership of several standing committees have also been dominated by such members. “About any conflict of interest, the potential can never be undermined,” the report noted. “Importance of parliament as legislative body and seriousness of that has considerably reduced. It is a great concern which citizen should look at,” Himanshu Jha, convenor of the NSWC told Governance Now.

Some members of the Lok Sabha also had incremental jumps in wealth during its last term (2004-2009), the study noted. According to the report, “There was increase of wealth by 3,023 percent of Congress MP L Rajagopal since 2004.” The other MPs in the club of those with more than a thousand percent increase in assets are Uday Singh (BJP), H D Kumarswamy JD(S), D Napoleon (DMK) and Ambica Banerjee (AITC).

Public Interest Litigation (PIL)

The report indicated that less than one percent of PIL’s demanding intervention were heard by the Supreme Court. According to the report, “In 2008, the SC received 24,666 letters, postcards, or petitions asking for its intervention in cases that might be considered public interest litigations. Of these, only 226 were placed before judges on admission days, and only a small fraction of these were heard as regular hearing matters. The rest were rejected.”

The total backlog of cases pending in all High Courts on December 31, 2009, was a whopping 40,76,837, according to the report's data. It also mentioned that Allahabad high court has maximum backlog of cases.  

Top performing MPs fail to get re-elected

The report names Trichur MP C K Chandrappan as the best performing parliamentarian in the 14th Lok Sabha (2004 to 2009) amid the heavyweights like Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, Kapil Sibal, L.K. Advani, Lalu Yadav, Ramvilas Paswan or even Md. Salim who are better known names among the public and media.

But the report said, “Sadly, Chandrappan failed to get the nod of electorate in the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha.” This not only happened with Chandrappan but with six other MPs who were among the top ten performers in Parliament. “You see the 10 MPs, they are the unsung heroes of parliament but hardly get mentioned,” Jha said.

The report named just one member from the biggies - BJP's Hansraj Gangaram Ahir and Congress's Salarapatty Kuppusamy Kharventhan among the top ten Parliamentarians.

The list assessed MPs on four parameters – attendance, participation in debates, number of questions asked and number of private members’ bills (PMBs) proposed and surveyed all the 545 MPs. 

The study also said that number of bills passed witnessed a decline from 47 in 2008 to 41 in 2009.