Parliament is increasingly passing Bills after relatively short periods of discussion. Data compiled from sessions between 2024 and 2026 across both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha show that while a few politically significant Bills did receive several hours of debate in both Houses, many have been cleared after less than an hour of discussion. 

Of the 46 Bills analysed from the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha through the Monsoon Session of 2026, 29 were passed after less than an hour of discussion in at least one House – 18 in the Lok Sabha and 11 in the Rajya Sabha. 

Each Bill appearing more than once in the dataset was counted only once. Additionally, three pairs of bills – the Waqf (Amendment) and Mussalman Waqf (Repeal) Bills, 2024; the Income-Tax (No.2) and Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bills, 2025; and the National Sports Governance and National Anti-Doping (Amendment) Bills, 2025 – were discussed together and thus counted only once.  

Bills passed within minutes in 2026

The trend was particularly pronounced this year, when 17 Bills were examined in the Budget and Monsoon sessions. The median time Parliament spent discussing a Bill fell to two hours and 20 minutes in 2026 compared to three hours and 52 minutes in 2025 and five hours and 56 minutes in 2024 (half a year). Three of the 17 Bills examined in this year’s sessions received less than an hour of combined discussion in the two Houses. 

Overall, the Rajya Sabha spent 40 hours discussing these Bills, compared to 35 hours and 35 minutes in the Lok Sabha – a gap that widened sharply in the Monsoon Session.

During the 19-day Monsoon Session this year, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha functioned for 15 percent and 33 percent of their scheduled time. Except for two days, the Lok Sabha did not function for more than one hour. The Rajya Sabha’s functioning was the lowest since the Budget Session of 2023. The chair adjourned the Lok Sabha 35 times and the Rajya Sabha 37 times during the session, according to PRS Legislative Research.

Disruption undermining scrutiny isn’t new, TMC leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sagrika Ghose argued, pointing to the passage of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in 2023 as an earlier........

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