New Delhi: The Monsoon Session of parliament may have been adjourned sine die on August 13, but 32 days later, neither House has been prorogued, the formal act which implies the end of a session of parliament. While proroguing parliament is the prerogative of the Union government, the delay has been questioned by opposition parties who have alleged that the Modi government is looking to shore up its numbers and re-introduce its contentious Lok Sabha expansion-led Delimitation Bill which was defeated in April during a special session.The constitution does not lay down any specific time frame for the President to prorogue Parliament after a session has been adjourned sine die. However, parliamentary convention has been that sessions are prorogued within a few days.“The prorogation of the House of parliament is the prerogative of the government which decides when the Houses should be prorogued or whether the Houses should be prorogued or not. The usual practice is to prorogue the Houses within a week’s time,” said former Lok Sabha secretary general P.D.T Achary.“It is unusual for the Houses not to be prorogued because the parliament sessions are predetermined, in that the government decides the duration of the session, the business it wants to transact in that time. Following that, the proposal goes to the President through the Lok Sabha Speaker, and the President then gives the assent, following which the summons are issued by the secretary generals.”What the rules sayProrogation means the end of a session, while an adjournment is an interruption in the course of a single session. Adjournment sine die means termination of the sitting of the House without specifying or fixing any definite date for its next sitting.Under Article 85, (1) of the Constitution, the President may summon each House of parliament but it also provides that the time between two sessions should not exceed six months.Article 85(2) further provides that the President may from time to time prorogue the Houses or either House” and can also dissolve the Lok Sabha.According to Rajya Sabha at Work, the upper house’s manual, the Rajya Sabha is not subject to dissolution unlike the Lok Sabha, which, unless sooner dissolved, continues for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and the expiration of the said period of five years operates as dissolution of that House.The manual also says that a session of the Rajya Sabha commences on the date and time mentioned in the Summoning Order of the President and ends with the day on which he prorogues the House.Also read: The Failed Delimitation Bills Would Have Had a Deadly Effect on the Rajya SabhaThe manual notes that the time between the adjournment of the House sine die and its prorogation varies between 2 and 10 days, although there are instances when the Rajya Sabha was prorogued on the same or the next day of it adjournment sine die, and there are also instances when the gap was somewhat long. It is also not necessary that both Houses should be prorogued simultaneously.The Rajya Sabha manual also notes that if the House is adjourned sine die and before its prorogation, it can be reconvened. In such a scenario, the reconvened session is regarded as the second part of the session and no fresh summons is issued to the members. The Rajya Sabha at Work manual records show that such instances have taken place in 1989, 1990, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2013.What delay meansIf the Houses have not been prorogued, then the government cannot promulgate an ordinance. An ordinance can be promulgated under Article 123 only if both Houses are not in session.Further a constitutional amendment bill, like the delimitation bill, cannot be brought through the ordinance route. As a constitutional amendment can under Article 368 be brought only through a bill brought in either house of parliament and be passed by two-thirds majority of the members present and voting.Why the opposition is questioning delay in prorogationCongress MP and the party’s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh has alleged that the Modi government’s delay in proroguing the Monsoon Session is due to its intention of bringing the delimitation bill.Also read: Delimitation Bill Missing from Government’s ‘Tentative’ Monsoon Session Agenda“Normally prorogation takes place 3-4 days after adjournment sine die. But the gap for the Monsoon Session in 2015 was 28 days. That session had been washed out almost entirely over the Lalit Modi issue but the Modi Govt kept the session alive hoping to bulldoze the GST Bills through. It needed a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha which it did not have. As it turned out the Modi Govt was forced to consult more meaningfully with the Opposition and pass the Bills much later,” he said.In April, a united opposition defeated the constitutional amendment Bill that sought to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 seats to “operationalise” women’s reservation. The bill was the first time that the Modi government had failed to get a constitutional amendment passed.Since then, defections in the Trinamool Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Shiv Sena (UBT) have shored up the BJP-led NDA’s numbers and had fuelled speculation that the Monsoon Session would see the government seeking to reintroduce the bill. However, the session ended with the government being forced for the first time to oust one of its ministers under youth-led public protests, while the opposition managed to keep it on the backfoot with pressure demanding answers for the police action on protesters.“The 2026 Monsoon Session has been kept on ventilator because the Home Minister is still scrambling around for his super-tainted two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha to get the Delimitation Bills passed. How much longer before he accepts the reality that his politics of threats and intimidation has reached its limit?” wrote Ramesh on X.On September 11, TMC MP Sagarika Ghose said the Modi government still does not have the numbers and the move to not prorogue parliament is yet another “devious” record “as it desperately tries to manufacture a corrupt two-thirds majority to bulldoze through Delimitation.”