Vice President Hamid Ansari on Tuesday released the third edition of “Rajya Sabha at Work” which compiles procedures, practices, conventions and rulings governing the functioning of the Upper House, having evolved over the years.

Speaking on the occasion, the Vice-President, who is also the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, said the framers of the Constitution decided to create a Parliamentary structure, after a study of the best systems in the world, and provided for the Second Chamber.

The Second Chamber was certainly not meant to delay, nor to obstruct, but to give space to take a second look at legislation, Ansari said. A second look was always useful, and added to the quality of work, he said.

Select Committees of the House had through their detailed deliberations provided commendable inputs to their subjects.

Every piece of work done by these Committees added to the quality of legislation, he said.

Too many pieces of legislation these days, Ansari said, were landing in court. Perhaps sufficient attention was not paid to their drafting, he said.

The drafting was done by competent persons in different Ministries but the judges looked at the issues from different angles. Therein lay the significance of the second look at the issues, he said.

The Rajya Sabha had occasions when it displayed high quality of debate, like the one witnessed during the impeachment of a judge, he said.

The Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman, P J Kurien, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs  Ananth Kumar, Members of Parliament,

and Secretary-General of Rajya Sabha Shumsher K Sheriff were among those present. Kurien said that “during the span of more than six decades of its functioning, the Rajya Sabha had stood the test of time and played a significant role as a legislative, deliberative and oversight body in our democratic polity.”

The Rajya Sabha Secretary proposed a vote of thanks to all those present including former Rajya Sabha Director B G Gujar, who had co-authored the first edition of the book with the late Rajya Sabha Secretary-General V S Rama Devi in 1996. The second edition came out in 2006 when Yogendra Narain was the Secretary-General.