Joint Parliamentary Committee

Joint parliamentary committee

Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is one type of ad hoc Parliamentary committee constituted by the Indian parliament.

Formation:

Joint Parliamentary Committee is formed when motion is adopted by one house and it is supported or agreed by the other house.
Another way to form a Joint Parliamentary committee is that two presiding chiefs of both houses can write to each other, communicate with each other and form the joint parliamentary committee.

Membership:

The Lok Sabha members are double compared to Rajya Sabha.
for e.g. If Joint Parliamentary committee has 10 Lok Sabha Members then 5 members will be from Rajya Sabha and total member of JPC will be 15.
The strength of a JPC may be different each time.

Powers:

A JPC can obtain evidence of experts, public bodies, associations, individuals or interested parties suo motu or on requests made by them. If a witness fails to appear before a JPC in response to summons, his conduct constitutes a contempt of the House.
The JPC can take oral and written evidence or call for documents in connection with a matter under its consideration. The proceedings of parliamentary committees are confidential, but in the case of the joint committee which went into “Irregularities in Securities and Banking Transactions”, the committee decided that considering the widespread public interest in the matter, the chairman should brief the press about deliberations of the committees.
Ministers are not generally called by the committees to give evidence. However, in case of the Irregularities in Securities and Banking Transactions probe again, an exception was made, with the JPC, with the permission of the Speaker, seeking information on certain points from ministers and calling Minister of Finance and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The government may withhold or decline to produce a document if it is considered prejudicial to the safety or interest of State. The Speaker has the final word on any dispute over calling for evidence against a person or production of a document.

Source:Wiki