• There are two kinds of committees that Parliament may set up: standing committees and ad-hoc committees. JPCs belong to the category of ad-hoc committees. As the categorisation suggests, these committees are created to take up specific matters and are disbanded once they have discharged the task for which they were set up.
• They are called ‘joint’ committees because members of both the Houses of Parliament can be nominated or elected to them.
• According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat (LSS), JPCs is a kind of panel that can be “appointed by the House or the Speaker or the Presiding Officers of both the Houses in consultation with each other as the case may be from time-to-time on ad-hoc basis as and when necessary for a particular purpose”.

Why a JPC?

• Law-making being a complex and time-consuming task, the Parliament may set up a JPC to go into the provisions of a particular piece of legislation. The JPC examines the proposed law, consults stakeholders and present its report to the Parliament. For example, the Personal Data Protection Bill, which was introduced in 2019, is being examined by a JPC.
• However, JPCs can also be set up “to investigate serious issues which have greatly agitated the public mind and which involve fraud or corruption on a large scale”. In this regard, such committees are set up “on the basis of a consensus arrived at between the government and the opposition”. The Lok Sabha Secretariat says that the “JPC is a well-known and potent investigative mechanism of Parliament”.

Composition of a JPC

• According to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, the proportion of the members of the two Houses on a JPC “is approximately in the ratio of two members of Lok Sabha to one of Rajya Sabha”. No member is to be named to a committee if they are unwilling to serve on it and, when it comes to JPCs, no ministers are supposed to be a part of it. For instance, after Meenakshi Lekhi was sworn in as a minister in the Narendra Modi government in July 2021, she ceased to be the chair of the JPC on the PDP Bill.
• Parliamentary committees are operational for a period of one year or for a period specified by the Speaker or the motion that laid the grounds for their setting up or until a new committee is nominated.

Powers of a JPC

• The Lok Sabha Secretariat says that a parliamentary committee may appoint sub-committees, pursue evidence or call for documents and summon persons, papers and records. Members of JPCs set up to go into proposed legislation can suggest amendments to it.
• Sittings of such committees are held in private and no member or anybody who has access to its proceedings is permitted to communicate “directly or indirectly, to the press any information regarding its proceedings before the report has been presented to the House”.
• The report of these committees is presented to the House by its chairperson or, in the absence of the chairperson by any of its members. Members who do not agree with the majority report, “may append their minutes of dissent” to it.

Some investigative JPCs

• Amid the controversy over the Pegasus spy software during the 2021 Monsoon Session of Parliament, calls were made for the setting up of a JPC to probe the matter. Demands have also been made by the Opposition for a JPC to go into the Rafale fighter jet deal with Dassault Aviation of France.
• Among the notable investigative JPCs have been the ones that probed the Bofors contract (1987), the stock market scam (2001), the alleged mixing of pesticide residues in soft drinks, fruit juices and other beverages (2003), and the 2G spectrum sale scam (2011).

Concerns associated with JPC

• Political vendetta - Most of the members present in JPC belong to opposition parties and there are high chances of vendetta politics over an issue.
• Non-professional - All MPs are not professional when it comes to a particular matter. The investigation conducted could be faulty and will only waste the time and resources.

Thus, JPCs should be used sparingly in only major concerns and not on political issues. There is also need for involving subject experts and neutral observers during investigation.