Special Powers of Rajya Sabha

The Rajya Sabha exists, at its core, as an institutional mechanism to give the States a voice — its purpose is to protect the interests and powers of the States within the Union. This is why any matter that touches on the States' domain has to be referred to the Rajya Sabha for its consent. If the Union Parliament wants to shift a subject that is normally in the State List — one that only State legislatures can ordinarily make laws on — into either the Union List or the Concurrent List because doing so is judged to be in the national interest, this can only happen with the Rajya Sabha's approval. This single provision is what gives the Rajya Sabha real, distinctive strength. In practice, though, experience shows that Rajya Sabha members tend to represent the interests of their political parties more consistently than they represent the interests of their home States — which limits how far this safeguard actually works as intended.

Set against this, there are certain powers that belong to the Lok Sabha alone. The Rajya Sabha cannot initiate, reject, or amend a money bill. More importantly, the Council of Ministers is constitutionally responsible to the Lok Sabha, not to the Rajya Sabha — which means the Rajya Sabha is free to criticise the government of the day, but it has no power to remove it from office. The reason is straightforward: the Rajya Sabha is elected indirectly, by MLAs, rather than directly by the people, so the Constitution deliberately stopped short of giving it the power to make or unmake a government. In a democracy where the people are the final authority, that logic holds that only the directly-elected House — the one whose members answer straight to the voters — should hold the decisive powers of removing a government and controlling its finances. This is exactly why the Lok Sabha is often described as the House that "controls the purse" and is, in th …