There is nothing wrong in members of parliament raising questions about the activities of publicly owned companies. In fact, they should do so more frequently in the interest of improving corporate governance, transparency and to protect minority shareholder rights. It is their job to make sure that the concerned ministries and regulators are doing theirs to ensure the integrity of capital markets.

But, very few MP’s in this country take any active interest in corporate governance, shareholder rights or capital markets. Whenever there is a market crash, there will be a perfunctory question about how the government is ‘handling the situation’ – as if the government can do something about it to fix the problem instantly. When the indices rally, those from the Left parties and the opposition will call it ‘unnatural’ or ‘manipulated’ and will demand an investigation to find out why stock prices are surging.

In short, the politicians’ interest is limited to scandals or spectacular events that attract public attention. They conveniently forget that it is the lack of effective oversight in normal times that lead to scandals and spectacular events in the first place. It is the job of the legislature to keep a watchful eye on the government and the various independent regulators and ask relevant and meaningful questions when necessary. Yet, they barely seem to even acknowledge this important responsibility.

When our MP’s do ask questions about companies, the motives behind those questions are suspect. They are either for political reasons to embarrass the government or to please their businessmen friends. The question asked this week by Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh in the Rajya Sabha about Reliance Petroleum is a case in point. His pointed question was whether the government had taken any action against the promoters or affiliates of Reliance Industries regarding the ‘mammoth insider trading activities in the shares of Reliance Petroleum’.