JOIN USLok Sabha productivity has been maximum in last 3 years: Birla
As Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla completes three years in office on June 19, he spoke in an interview to DH about controversies around the Speaker's role in matters of the 10th Schedule, money bill and Parliamentary committees. He preferred a code of conduct by political parties themselves rather than Parliament to rein in MPs creating disruptions. Birla also highlighted how the Lok Sabha performance went up in the last three years during his tenure.
How has been your experience as Lok Sabha Speaker in the last three years?
The productivity in these three years has been the maximum. The total productivity of the Budget Session of the 17th Lok Sabha this year was 129 per cent while the total productivity of the 17th Lok Sabha was 106 per cent. The productivity of the 16th Lok Sabha was 95 %, the 15th was 71 % and the 14th was 86%. Up to the 8th session of the 17th Lok Sabha, the House worked for 995.45 hours, which is the highest when compared with the working hours of the first eight sessions of the last three Lok Sabha. More bills were introduced and passed in the first eight sessions of this Lok Sabha as compared to the eight sessions of the last three Lok Sabha. So was the case with regard to the average time taken for discussion of bills and the number of participating members. A total of 3039 matters were placed before the House in this Lok Sabha by members under Rule 377. Overall productivity has risen.
How challenging have you found it to address the issue of disruption in Parliament? In fact, disruption is now the order of the day even in most state Assemblies that affects the legislative business. Why does the Chair not come out with some Code of Conduct?
The issue has been discussed at the Shimla Conference of Legislative Assemblies. In 2001 such issues were discussed in the Speaker's conference attended by all Chief Ministers and state speakers. I am of the view that it is political parties, who should decide how to work together in a manner the legislative business is carried out smoothly. It will be better if political parties themselves come out with a Code of Conduct for their members. Lok Sabha already has its Code of Conduct for MPs in the House.
There was a lot of controversy about former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang and another whistleblower Frances Haugen, who had flagged bias and lack of proper regulation by the social media platform not having been called to depose before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT.
Parliamentary Committees are independent in their functioning. As far as the issue of calling people for deposition before the Committee is concerned, it does not require the permission of the Speaker. If somebody has to be called from the states, the Speaker's permission is taken. However, there is a lack of clarity of rules regarding calling persons outside India for deposition. The earlier Speaker has given some parameters but there is no clarity regarding rules. The Rule Committee of Parliament will examine the issue and decide what is to be done in scenarios where persons from outside India have to be summoned before the Parliamentary Committees.
10th Schedule dealing with the disqualification of a member of the House is another contentious issue. A number of times, the role of the Chair in Houses in Parliament or in Assemblies has come under question over certain decisions. What is the way out?
Due to a delay in the decision in 10th schedule matters, the Chair faces criticism. The Chair should decide it soon. The issue was discussed in the meeting of Presiding Officers of Houses in Dehradun in which there was a general refrain that a time limit should be fixed for decisions related to it. A committee was set up for this purpose but the committee did not come out with a unanimous view. The issue will now be discussed again.
Concerns have been raised in many quarters regarding the lack of quality debates in Parliament nowadays. What are you doing to arrest this trend?
We have to also take into account the pressure on MPs nowadays. There are lots of demands from MPs from their constituencies that keep them engaged there. Still our MPs contribute immensely during the debate. Lok Sabha Secretariat is always for capacity building of public representatives for quality debates. We are trying to make all Parliamentary debates available on the basis of meta-data on one platform so that MPs can benefit from it.
Concerns have been raised that the access of media to Parliament will be restricted once the new Parliament Building comes up. Your take?
There will be no restriction on media access. Rather the media will have better access to the new Parliament building.
Remarks of some MPs have recently drawn the ire of the courts. What can be done that MPs refrain from indulging in comments that fan sentiments and create rows?
Parliament has an Ethics Committee of both Houses to examine any such issue related to MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. MPs come from different parties with different ideological backgrounds and air their views in public according to that.
Many times questions have been raised about the conduct of the Chair. How do you resolve this?
Everybody has to maintain the respect of the Chair. It's not about a person. It is about the position of the Speaker and the House belongs to all.
Money Bill has become quite a contentious issue for some time. MPs have also gone to the courts in recent times alleging arbitrary use of the money bill route to pass normal bills. What do you think?
There are certain fixed rules under which a bill can be defined as a money bill. The courts have also said that the Chair's decision is final on this.