Answer:

The Speaker of Lok Sabha or State Legislative Assembly is elected from amongst its members. He is guardian of powers and privileges of the members, the House as a whole and its committees.

♤ Maintains order and decorum in the House for conducting its business and regulating its proceedings. Maintaining impartiality of the office, he ensures that ample time is given to Parliament as a whole and opposition in particular to ensure accountability.

♤ Adjourns the House and suspends the meeting in absence of quorum.

♤ Decides whether a bill is money bill or not and his decision on this is final.

♤ Decides on the question of disqualification of a member arising on the ground of defection (although not outside the purview of Judicial review –Kihoto Hollohan Case 1992).

♤ Appoints the chairman of all Parliamentary Committees of Lok Sabha and supervises their functioning. He himself is the chairman of the Business Advisory Committee, the Rules Committee and the General Purpose Committee.

However in recent times, the office of Speaker has been criticised for not being as impartial or effective as had been envisaged:

♤ Speaker of Uttarakhand Assembly decided on a case of defection while a notice of resolution for his own removal from the office is pending. Supreme Court had to intervene and observed that Speaker should refrain in such cases.

♤ Supreme Court has accepted a plea with respect to the Speaker’s approval of Aadhaar Bill, 2016 as a Money Bill. It is argued that declaring a bill which includes larger concerns like that of privacy, data protection etc. should also involve Rajya Sabha to have a meaningful debate.

♤ Parliamentary logjam has been a consistent scene on the floor of parliament whereby Speaker have been unable to facilitate a smooth functioning and accused of bias.

Our constitutional maker envisaged integrity and impartiality from the office. But it has been progressively eclipsed by political interests and made subservient to needs of ruling party. Judicial review in is also used in exceptional circumstances. We need a permanent institutional solution. UK’s model of appointing a committee of two senior legislators to assist the speaker over question of money bill is a case to consider. In UK, a parliamentary convention has developed, where an MP elected as Speaker, resigns from respective party. This lends credence to his impartiality.

Both, government and opposition need to cooperate so that parliament can function smoothly and speaker is not put into difficult situations too often. Also, Speaker needs to keep in mind the democratic ethos while presiding over esteemed office and his actions must appear to be objective and neutral as “Justice should not only be done, it must also be seen to be done”.