JULY 2019 l PARlIAMENTARIAN 31Mavalankar, every other Lok Sabha
Speaker has been elected unanimously.
After the election, the Speaker is
escorted to his chair by the leaders of
both the ruling and opposition parties.
These conventions are meant to reflect
that after his election, the Speaker
belongs to the entire House.
For the next five years, all his
actions will be weighed on the scale of
neutrality. He will have to be vigilant
to defend the sanctity of the institution
and also have the vision to strengthen
it. In this challenging journey, his
guiding light will be the Constitution
and the rules of procedure of Lok
Sabha.
The provision of Money Bill, since
it does not need to be passed by the
Rajya Sabha, is often misused by the
Government. Since the Speaker is
the sole arbiter in such matters,
government wants a pliable person
to be in the chair.
In Modi government’s previous
term, one such contentious money
bill was the Aadhaar (Targeted
Delivery of Financial and Other
Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act,- The opposition argued that the
Aadhaar bill did not qualify as a
money bill, which is defined as one
that contains provisions for taxes,
appropriation of funds, and other
purely revenue-related matters.
political turf
Since Speaker is also the person who
certifies if some MPs defecting from
one party to the other is legal, it
bestows upon him immense power to
make or mar fortunes of a party and
the government. This is another reason
why ruling parties want a yes man as
speaker. Shivraj Patil’s decision
regarding Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok
Dal’s defection to Congress was one
such example. Singh did not have
enough numbers so Patil devised a
strange phenomenon called split in
cont i nu it y.
Ajit Singh split the 59-member
Janata Dal with three of his colleagues
in 1992. JD leader VP Singh asked then
Lok Sabha speaker Patil to disqualify
Ajit and his friends. But, Patil delayed
the decision. In the meantime, there
was another split as 16 other MPs
separated from JD. Ajit Singh applied
to Patil for recognition as separate
group including the next batch of 16.
Patil immediately granted them
recognition of a separate party since
together they had become 20, one
third or total strength 59, therebycJi s tature
The speaker is the conventional head
of the lower house with a constitutional
status at par with that of the Chief
Justice of India. It is the speaker who
decides when a member speaks, how
much time she gets, what gets included
in the official account and which
statements get expunged, and whether,
in cases of a member causing
disturbance, she remains in the House
or is expelled from it.
The Lok Sabha Speaker is also the
principal spokesman, the ultimate
arbiter and interpreter of those
provisions which relate to the
functioning of the House
It is the speaker who allows the
members to introduce the bills or to
move motions. The speaker fixes time
limit for the debates in the House, puts
matters to vote and announces the
results.
The speaker also gets to decide
whether this House will have a leader
of opposition, given that Congress falls
short of getting LoP status - for which
opposition party requires 10 per cent
seats of Lok Sabha or 55 seats - by 3
seats. Crucially, it is the speaker who
gets to arbitrate over a dispute on
whether a bill is a Money Bill or not.
Such a decision is final and cannot be
challenged inside or outside the House.speaker wanTs 18 To
20 quesTions To Be
asked in quesTion
hour each day, or
Three minuTes per
quesTion, which may
kill supplemenTary
quesTions