Long wait for a Deputy Speaker for Lok Sabha

• Integrity Education, Delhi
• 03, Sep 2021

• Context: Delhi High Court directed the central government to explain its stand over the issue of not holding elections to the post of Deputy Speaker of LS
• The Post of Deputy Speaker is vacant since the 2019 General Election.

Article 93 in The Constitution Of India

The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker thereof and, so often as the office of Speaker or Deputy Speaker becomes vacant, the House shall choose another member to be Speaker or Deputy Speaker, as the case may be.

Key Facts

• The responsibility to elect a Deputy Speaker is the responsibility of the House, not the Speaker
• A Deputy Speaker enjoys the same legislative powers as the Speaker. And in absence of the Speaker because of death, illness or any other reason, the Deputy Speaker also assumes the administrative powers.
• When Speaker is not preceding over the house, a member from the panel from the panel of Chairperson precede over the house
• There is a constitution-mandated panel of 10 members to preside over the proceedings of the Lok Sabha in the absence of Speaker
• Keeping the post of deputy speaker vacant is a violation of Article 93 of the Indian constitution.

Tenure and removal of Deputy Speaker

• Deputy Speaker hold office until either they cease to be a member of the Lok Sabha or they resign.
• Deputy Speaker can be removed from office by a resolution passed in the Lok Sabha by an effective majority of its members.