Kharge revives debate over absence of LS Deputy Speaker, urges PM Modi to fill post vacant for six years

New Delhi: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge revived the debate over the absence of Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker on Tuesday, urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate the process to fill the Constitutional post that remains vacant for the past six years.

Kharge, also the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, shot off a letter to Modi saying this “does not augur well for Indian democratic polity” and also in “violation” of well laid out provisions in Article 93 of the Constitution.

For the past 2,200 days since June 2019, Lok Sabha has not elected a Deputy Speaker. The previous instance of longest delay was during 12th Lok Sabha (1998-99) when it took 269 days to elect PM Sayeed as Deputy Speaker.

The importance of the post could be gauged from the fact that the Constitution stipulates that it is the Deputy Speaker to whom the Speaker has to submit his resignation, if he chooses to do so.

Kharge said Article 93 mandates the election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, who is the second-highest presiding officer of the House, “as soon as may be” and traditionally, the Deputy Speaker has been elected in the second or third session of a newly constituted Lok Sabha. From the first Lok Sabha (1952-57) to 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19), he said every House had a Deputy Speaker.

“By and large, it has been a well-established convention to appoint Deputy Speaker from among the members of the principal Opposition party. However, for the first time in independent India’s history, this position has remained vacant for two consecutive Lok Sabha terms. No Deputy Speaker was elected during 17th Lok Sabha (2019-24) and this concerning precedent continues in the ongoing 18th Lok Sabha (2024 onwards),” he said.

A recent study by PRS Legislative study showed that Lok Sabha and eight states - Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh - have no Deputy Speakers. Jharkhand has kept the post mandated by the Constitution vacant for the longest period of 20 years and three months since March 2005.

An analysis of the choosing of Deputy Speaker showed that in the 11th Lok Sabha, Suraj Bhan was elected as Deputy Speaker within 52 days.

While it took him 269 days to be elected Deputy Speaker during 12th Lok Sabha, Sayeed was elected Deputy Speaker in the 13th Lok Sabha in just seven days, similar to the number of days taken by Charanjit Singh Atwal and Karia Munda in the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha respectively. In the previous Lok Sabha, M Thambi Durai was elected on the 71st day.

Last June, Opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc fielded Congress' Kodikkunnil Suresh for the post of Speaker against Om Birla, saying it was doing so “to protect” the convention of the Opposition having Deputy Speaker chair.

During the Budget Session, the bloc also petitioned Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla pointing fingers at the Modi government over “certain disturbing trends” of disregard for Parliamentary procedures, including failure to elect a Deputy Speaker in 2019.

In 2022, RSP MP NK Premachandran introduced a private member bill in Lok Sabha last week to amend Article 93 of the Constitution to insert a specific time limit of one month to choose a Deputy Speaker within a month from the date of election of Speaker.

The Constituent Assembly debates also show that the importance given to Deputy Speaker, as member M V Kamath chose to withdraw his amendment to make the Speaker submit his resignation to the President after B R Ambedkar and others argued against it. Ambedkar said it cannot be accepted as the House should remain independent of the Executive.

In the Constituent Assembly, Kamath had argued that he felt that it would be better if the Speaker addresses his letter of resignation to the President, because the Deputy Speaker holds an office subordinate to him.

Another member Shibban Lal Saxena opposed Kamath pointing out that the President is the Executive head and wants the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker to be completely independent of the Executive.

He argued that if the Speaker should send in his resignation to the Deputy Speaker, it only means that the independence of the Speaker and the House over which he presides should be maintained.

"If we send it to the President, it means we send it to the Executive. It is a very healthy principle that the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker should be completely independent of the Executive," Saxena said.

While Tajamul Hussain supported Kamath, Ambedkar told the Assembly that the original proposal is based upon a very simple principle and it is this, that a person normally tenders his resignation to another person who has appointed him.

“The existing article is now the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker are persons who are appointed or chosen or elected by the House. Consequently these two people, if they want to resign, must tender their resignations to the House which is the appointing authority. Of course, the House being a collective body of people, a resignation could not be addressed to each member of the House separately,” he said.

“Consequently, the provision is made that the resignation should be addressed either to the Speaker or to the Deputy Speaker, because it is they who represent the House. Really speaking, in theory, the resignation is to the House because it is the House which has appointed them. The President is not the person who has appointed them,” he said.

“Consequently, it would be very incongruous to require the Deputy Speaker or the Speaker to tender their resignations to the President who has nothing to do with the House and who should have nothing to do with the House in order that the House may be independent of the executive authority exercised either through the President or through the Government of the day," he added.