Adjournment Motion

In News

Recently, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has decided to move an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha against the government on the three controversial farm laws.

About

• The farm laws — the “Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the “Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the “Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020” were cleared by Parliament last year.
• There have seen sustained protests from farmers groups at the doorstep of Delhi and the Central government has held several rounds of talks, which have been unsuccessful at breaking the logjam. 

Adjournment Motion

About:

• It is regarded as an extraordinary device because it interrupts the normal business of the House and needs the support of 50 members to be admitted in the Parliament.

Objective: 

• To draw the attention of the House to a recent matter of urgent public importance having serious consequences. 

Censure against the Government:

• As it involves the element of censure against the government hence Rajya Sabha is not allowed to make use of this option.

Admissibility

• The matter raised is definite, factual, urgent and of public importance.
• It relates to a specific matter of recent occurrence.
• It does not raise a question of privilege.
• It does not revive discussion on a matter already discussed in the same session.
• It does not relate to a matter which is sub-judice.
• It does not raise any question which under the Constitution or Rules can be raised only on a distinct substantive motion.
• The matter involves direct or indirect responsibility of the Government of India.

Motions

• Motions are procedural devices to raise a discussion in the House on a matter of general public interest. 
• The term ‘motion’ means any proposal submitted to the House for eliciting its decision.  
• Every matter is determined in the House by means of a question put from the Chair on a motion made by a member and resolved either in the affirmative or negative.   
• Motions can be moved by private members as well as Ministers. 

Categorisations:

• The motion moved by the members to raise discussions on various matters to fall into three principal categories:
• Substantive Motion: It is a self-contained independent proposal dealing with very important matters like the impeachment of the President or removal of the Chief Election Commissioner.
• Substitute Motion: it is a motion that is moved in substitution of an original motion and proposes an alternative to it. If adopted by the house, it supersedes the original motion.
• Subsidiary Motion: It is a motion that, by itself, has no meaning and cannot state the decision of the house without reference to the original motion or proceedings of the house. It is divided into three subcategories:

1. Ancillary motion: It is used as the regular way of proceeding with various kinds of business.
2. Superseding Motion: It is moved in the course of the debate on another issue and seeks to supersede that issue.
3. Amendment: It seeks to modify or substitute only a part of the original motion.

Types of Motions:

• Closure Motion: It is a motion moved by a member to cut short the debate on a matter before the House.
• Privilege Motion: It is concerned with the breach of parliamentary privileges by a minister.
  • It is moved by a member when he feels that a minister has committed a breach of privilege of the House.
• Calling Attention Motion: It is introduced in the Parliament by a member to call the attention of a minister to a matter of urgent public importance, and to seek an authoritative statement from him on that matter.
• No-Confidence Motion: Article 75 of the Constitution says that the council of ministers shall be collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.

Source: TH