What is the object of “cut motion” in Parliament ?

Question

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Correct — B, To move a proposal to reduce expenditure in the budget proposals. A cut motion is a motion moved by a member of the Lok Sabha, during the stage at which the House votes on the Demands for Grants, asking that the amount of a particular demand be reduced. Its constitutional home is Article 113(2), which says that the votable estimates shall be submitted as demands for grants to the House of the People, and that the House 'shall have power to assent, or to refuse to assent, to any demand, or to assent to any demand subject to a reduction of the amount specified therein.' That last clause — assent subject to a reduction — is the cut motion, and it is the only one of the House's three powers that needs a member to move something. The Lok Sabha's rules recognise three forms, and every one of them is a proposed reduction of a stated figure. A Policy Cut asks that the demand 'be reduced to Re 1' and signifies disapproval of the policy behind the demand, leaving the mover free to argue for an alternative policy. An Economy Cut asks that it be reduced by a specified sum, and represents the saving the mover says can be made. A Token Cut asks that it be reduced by ₹100, and exists purely to force a debate on one named grievance within the Government of India's sphere of responsibility. So the object is neither vague restraint nor day-to-day control: it is a numerical reduction proposed against the estimates in the budget, which is what option (b) says and the other three do not.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) A cut motion bites on the coming year's estimates while they are still proposals before the House, not on money the government is already spending. Once the Appropriation Act is passed, day-to-day drawings from the Consolidated Fund are lawful and no motion can claw them back; that spending is checked afterwards, by the Comptroller and Auditor-General's audit and the Public Accounts Committee. The option describes continuous executive oversight, which is not what a cut motion is.  (c) The nearest miss, and the reason the stem must be read slowly. It gets the subject matter right — grants — but loses the mechanism. A cut motion does not 'restrict' a grant in general terms; it names one demand and proposes a specific reduction in the amount of it, which the House then votes on. Note also the direction: the House grants money to the government, so 'the grants of the Government' has the ownership backwards.  (d) This one is affirmatively wrong on constitutional law, not merely imprecise. Article 112(2) splits the estimates into expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund and other expenditure, and Article 113(1) provides that the charged part 'shall not be submitted to the vote of Parliament'. Since the House never votes on charged expenditure, no cut motion can be moved against it. A cut motion reaches only the votable half — the demands for grants — so describing its object as restricting grants from the Consolidated Fund as a whole overstates it in exactly the direction the Constitution forbids.

Concept: Parliament's control of the purse runs through a fixed sequence of Articles. Article 112 requires the Annual Financial Statement — the Budget — to be laid before both Houses, showing separately the sums charged on the Consolidated Fund of India and the sums for other expenditure. Article 113 then splits the two: the charged estimates may be discussed but not voted, while the rest go to the Lok Sabha alone as demands for grants, which it may assent to, refuse, or assent to with a reduction. Article 114 turns the grants voted into an Appropriation Bill, without which no money may leave the Consolidated Fund. Article 116 allows a vote on account to keep government running until that process finishes. The cut motion is the instrument through which the middle power in Article 113(2) — the power to reduce — is actually exercised on the floor.

State PCS 2024 Q3 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q3 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer