Q.How has the parliamentary committee system affected overseeing/appraisal of legislation by Parliament?

The committee system has taken over much of the detailed scrutiny Parliament itself no longer has time for, changing how — rather than whether — oversight of legislation happens. …

Parliament meets only during limited sessions, and this leaves it very little time to give every bill, budget demand, or allegation of departmental corruption the detailed, in-depth study it deserves. Since 1983, India has addressed this gap by building up a system of more than twenty departmentally-related standing committees, each responsible for overseeing a specific set of government departments — examining their budgets, their expenditure, and any bills relating to their work. Alongside these, Joint Parliamentary Committees, drawing members from both Houses, are set up specifically to investigate a particular bill in depth or to look into financial irregularities.

The effect of this system on Parliament's own overseeing and appraisal role has been significant. On one hand, it has substantially reduced the burden on the full House: many important bills are now referred to committees, and Parliament typically approves the committee's work with only occasional changes of its own — the House is no longer expected to personally work through every technical detail. On the other hand, this does not mean oversight has weakened; if anything, it has become more rigorous in the areas committees actually cover, since committee members can devote far more sustained, expert attention to a bill or a department's spending than a full, time-pressed sitting of the House ever could. This is exactly why committees are often described as "miniature legislatures" — doing the close, careful work of appraisal that the whole House increasingly has neither the time nor, in some cases, the specialised expertise to do for itself. …