That's exactly what it is.
If we're doing a study on, for example, bus transportation, and someone wants to move a motion on that topic, then you don't need notice because it's already part of the discussion topic. But if you say that you want the committee to do a study on birds, well, that's not really the topic of the day. The idea behind the 48 hours' notice is to make sure that every member knows what might come up out of the blue. It's just to prevent any big surprise.