{"id":37462,"date":"2023-09-28T03:04:24","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T21:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=37462"},"modified":"2025-04-22T20:42:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T15:12:19","slug":"code-of-conduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/code-of-conduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament (MPs)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in Today&#8217;s Article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament (MPs)?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Declaration of MPs\u2019 Business Interests<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>As Parliament moved to a new building recently, two matters (affect MPs themselves and seek a commitment to good behaviour and proper conduct from them) have kept pending for years now in the Lok Sabha.<\/li>\n<li>The first is the formulation of a <strong>Code of Conduct <\/strong>for members of Lok Sabha and second is a <strong>declaration of members\u2019 business interests &#8211; <\/strong>both have long been applicable to members of Rajya Sabha.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament (MPs)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Code of Conduct is <strong>a collection of rules and principles intended to assist MPs<\/strong> in making decisions about their conduct in relation to the business in the <strong>Parliament<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>A code for Union ministers was adopted in <strong>1964 <\/strong>and in the case of MPs the first step was the constitution of <strong>Parliamentary Standing Committees on Ethics<\/strong> in both the Houses. The Committee will &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Examine every complaint <\/strong>relating to unethical conduct of a member of Lok Sabha\/Rajya Sabha referred to it by the Speaker\/Chairman and make such recommendations as it may deem fit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Formulate a Code of Conduct<\/strong> for members and suggest amendments or additions to the Code of Conduct from time to time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>After the Ethics Committee\u2019s report is tabled in the House<\/strong>, it is taken up for discussion and once approved by the House, it goes to the Rules Committee, which drafts Rules based on the recommendation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The first Ethics Committee in Rajya Sabha<\/strong> was inaugurated by Chairman K R Narayanan in 1997. <strong>A 14-point Code of Conduct<\/strong> for members of the House has been in force since <strong>2005<\/strong>. These include &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>Private interests are subordinate to the duty of the public office,<\/li>\n<li>Members must not do anything that brings disrepute to the Parliament and affects its credibility,<\/li>\n<li>Members must utilise their position to advance the general well-being of the people, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the case of Lok Sabha,<\/strong> the 1st Ethics Committee was constituted in <strong>2000 <\/strong>and has been constituted for every newly elected Lok Sabha since 13th Lok Sabha.\n<ul>\n<li>The Ethics Committee was mandated in <strong>2015 <\/strong>to formulate a code of conduct for Lok Sabha members.<\/li>\n<li>Recently, Lok Sabha said in response to a query under the RTI Act that the matter (of the Code of Conduct) is <strong>under consideration of the Committee on Ethics<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Declaration of MPs\u2019 Business Interests:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Concerns over potential conflicts of interest<\/strong> of MPs were first expressed almost a century ago in 1925.<\/li>\n<li>According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat,\n<ul>\n<li>Where a member of a Committee has a personal, pecuniary or direct interest in any matter which is to be considered by the Committee, such member shall state one\u2019s own interest to the Speaker through the Chairperson of the Committee.<\/li>\n<li>After considering the matter, <strong>the Speaker shall give a decision which shall be final.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee had <strong>recommended in 2012 for adoption of the Rajya Sabha model of Register of Members\u2019 Interest<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rule 293 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Rajya Sabha<\/strong> states that there shall be maintained a \u2018<strong>Register of Member\u2019s Interests<\/strong>\u2019 in such form as may be determined by the [Ethics] Committee.<\/li>\n<li>This shall be available to members for inspection on request and is accessible to ordinary citizens under the RTI Act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Lok Sabha Secretariat was accordingly directed to prepare a draft report on the subject. However, preparation of such a report has been pending since then.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are the salient features of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC)?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The salient features of the MCC lay down how political parties, contesting candidates and party(s) in power should conduct themselves during the process of elections.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) How is the parliamentary standing committee formed?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In the Indian Parliament, a Standing committee is a committee consisting of MPs. It is a permanent and regular committee which is constituted from time to time according to the provisions of an Act of Parliament or Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/lok-sabha-code-of-conduct-business-interest-8957367\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Lok Sabha goes to a new home, two crucial matters of probity still undecided<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two matters &#8211; formulation of a Code of Conduct and declaration of members\u2019 business interests &#8211; have kept pending for years now in the Lok Sabha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}