Question

With reference to the Union Parliament, answer the following question:
What is meant by the term ‘Session’? Name the three sessions of the union parliament.

Answer 1

Hint: The Union Parliament is the supreme law making of the body. It has two houses-the Rajya Sabha or the Council of States and the Lok Sabha or the House of People. The Lok Sabha is directly elected while the Rajya Sabha is indirectly elected. The Parliament House( Sansad Bhavan) is located in Delhi where the Members of Parliament meet and take decisions regarding the affairs of the country.

Complete Answer: Article 85 of the Constitution bestows the power on the President to summon each house of the Parliament to meet.A session of the Parliament is thus the time between its first sitting and its prorogation or dissolution. The difference between prorogation and dissolution is that the house is prorogued when the business of the session is over whereas dissolution means an entire new house is elected. A house can be prorogued and then the same house can assemble for another session. However dissolution means general elections are to be held and an entire new house is constituted.The maximum gap between two sessions of the parliament in a year cannot be more than 6 months and hence the parliament at least needs to have two sessions every year. A session of parliament consists of many meetings. Each meeting of the Parliament has two sittings-one morning sitting and one post lunch sitting.
Usually, three sessions of the parliament are held:
1)The Budget session : Organised from the month of February to May, the budget session is a crucial session as the Union Budget is presented in this session by the Finance Minister. In this session important decisions regarding taxation, grants and financial policies are taken. The budget session generally has a break of one month during which the department related standing committees analyse the demand for grants made in the budget.
2)The Monsoon session : This session usually is held from July to September. In 2020, due to the pandemic, the monsoon session was summoned in September.
3)The Winter session : This session usually takes place from November to December. It is usually the shortest of all sessions.

Note: It is important to note that the Committee on Parliamentary Affairs decides the dates of the Parliament’s sessions .One should not confuse these parliamentary sessions with the ‘ Joint Session’ of the parliament which is actually a joint sitting of the two houses to break a deadlock .