-Ramphal Kataria
Neutrality on Trial: The Parliamentary Battle Over the Lok Sabha Speaker
The Afternoon the Chair Fell Silent
On an unusually tense afternoon in the chamber of the Lok Sabha, members gathered for a debate that the Indian Constitution permits but the country’s parliamentary culture rarely confronts.
The Indian Parliament witnessed a rare constitutional moment when a resolution seeking the removal of Om Birla from the office of Speaker was admitted in the Lok Sabha.
While motions against Speakers have occasionally been proposed in India’s parliamentary history, they almost never advance to a serious institutional debate. This time, however, the procedural circumstances surrounding the motion triggered a deeper constitutional discussion—one that exposed a structural anomaly in the functioning of Parliament.
The immediate question concerned who should preside over the House when a resolution seeking the Speaker’s removal is under consideration. The Constitution prohibits the Speaker from presiding during such proceedings, but the office of Deputy Speaker—traditionally expected to perform that role—has remained vacant for extended periods.
The debate that unfolded in the Lok Sabha—featuring interventions by opposition leaders such as Gaurav Gogoi, Manish Tewari, Mahua Moitra and Asaduddin Owaisi—therefore raised questions that go beyond the fate of a single motion. It forced Parliament to confront the constitutional architecture governing the neutrality of its presiding officer.
The criticism came most forcefully from Asaduddin Owaisi.
The member presiding over the House, Owaisi argued, had been nominated to the panel by the Speaker whose conduct was now under scrutiny.
“How can someone nominated by the Speaker preside over a motion seeking his removal?” he asked.
Behind the procedural objection lay a deeper constitutional problem.
The office of the Deputy Speaker—required under Article 93—had remained vacant for years.
What the framers had imagined as a seamless constitutional mechanism had turned into an institutional improvisation.
And now, in the middle of a constitutional confrontation, that improvisation was beginning to show its cracks.
At stake is not merely the conduct of a particular Speaker but the integrity of the parliamentary system itself.
Under Article 96 of the Constitution, a Speaker cannot preside over proceedings considering his own removal. For the first time in years, the chamber was debating whether the Speaker himself had lost the confidence of the House.
The proceedings began with procedural unease.
A member from the Panel of Chairpersons took the chair to conduct the debate. Within minutes, objections erupted from the opposition benches.
“To Protect the Dignity of the House”
The motion itself was introduced by Gaurav Gogoi of the Congress Party.
Speaking slowly and deliberately, Gogoi framed the resolution not as a partisan attack but as a constitutional duty.
“We take no pleasure in introducing this resolution against the Speaker,” he said.
“But this resolution is being introduced to protect the dignity of the House.”
The charge against Birla was straightforward yet politically explosive: that the Speaker had ceased to function as a neutral arbiter of parliamentary debate.
Opposition members alleged that microphones were frequently switched off when they spoke, that opposition leaders were denied speaking time, and that rulings increasingly favoured the ruling coalition.
“The microphone,” Gogoi said, “has become a weapon inside the House.”
The accusation touched the core of parliamentary democracy.
Control over the microphone is control over the conversation of the nation’s legislature.
Mahua Moitra’s Cromwell Moment
The most theatrical intervention of the day came from Mahua Moitra.
Standing in the House, she invoked one of the most dramatic moments in parliamentary history.
Quoting the words attributed to Oliver Cromwell when dissolving the English Parliament in 1653, she declared:
“You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say. In the name of God, go.”
The quotation landed with a thud in the chamber.
Moitra’s speech carried an unmistakable personal undertone. Only months earlier, she herself had been expelled from Parliament during a controversy that unfolded under Birla’s Speakership.
She reminded the House of that episode.
“It is richly ironical,” she said, “that I stand here today initiating a debate against the very Speaker under whose tenure I was expelled.”
Her speech framed the removal motion as a moral reckoning rather than a procedural dispute.
The Speaker, she argued, had presided over a gradual erosion of parliamentary equality.
A Procedural Revolt
Throughout the debate, Owaisi returned repeatedly to the constitutional puzzle at the centre of the controversy.
The Constitution clearly states that the Speaker cannot preside during removal proceedings.
Normally, the Deputy Speaker performs that function.
But the Lok Sabha had not elected a Deputy Speaker.
The result was a constitutional workaround.
Members of the Panel of Chairpersons—appointed by the Speaker himself—were presiding over the debate.
Owaisi questioned whether this arrangement violated the spirit of the Constitution.
“If the House is judging the Speaker,” he argued, “the presiding authority must be beyond suspicion.”
Government ministers dismissed the objection as procedural theatrics, insisting that parliamentary rules allowed panel members to preside.
Yet the exchange exposed a deeper institutional failure.
The Constitution had anticipated the possibility of a removal motion.
What it had not anticipated was the prolonged vacancy of the Deputy Speaker’s office.
The Constitutional Design of the Speakership
The framers of the Constitution designed the office of the Speaker with unusual clarity.
Four constitutional provisions form the institutional backbone of the Speakership.
Article 93
The Lok Sabha must elect a Speaker and Deputy Speaker “as soon as may be.”
Article 94
The Speaker may be removed by a resolution passed by a majority of all members of the House.
Article 95
The Deputy Speaker performs the Speaker’s duties when the office becomes vacant or the Speaker is absent.
Article 96
The Speaker cannot preside when a resolution seeking his removal is under consideration.
Together, these provisions create a delicate balance.
The Speaker is powerful—but never immune from the authority of the House.
Ambedkar’s Constitutional Warning
The framers of the Constitution were acutely aware that institutional design alone could not guarantee democratic integrity.
During the final debates of the Constituent Assembly of India, B. R. Ambedkar delivered one of the most famous warnings in Indian constitutional history.
“Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it.”
Ambedkar’s observation was not abstract philosophy.
It was a warning about the fragility of democratic institutions.
No office demonstrates this fragility more vividly than the Speakership.
The Speaker’s authority rests less on legal power than on collective trust.
Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar and Legislative Autonomy
Another key figure in the drafting process, Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, repeatedly emphasised the independence of legislative institutions.
Ayyar argued that Parliament must retain complete control over its internal functioning, free from executive interference.
This principle underlies the authority of the Speaker.
But it also imposes a burden: the Speaker must embody the impartiality that legitimises parliamentary autonomy.
Even Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru once emphasised the dignity of the office in a speech often cited in parliamentary debates:
“The Speaker represents the dignity of the House, the freedom of the House and because the House represents the nation, in a particular way the Speaker becomes the symbol of the nation’s freedom and liberty.”
The Courts Enter the Debate
The judiciary has increasingly shaped the constitutional boundaries of the Speaker’s authority.
One of the most significant judgments came in Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker (2016).
The Court observed:
“The Speaker must demonstrate elevated independence, impeccable objectivity and absolute impartiality.”
The ruling established an important constitutional principle: the Speaker’s powers are not immune from judicial scrutiny.
Another landmark case, Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), held that decisions of the Speaker under the anti-defection law are subject to judicial review.
These rulings collectively transformed the Speakership into a constitutional office accountable to broader democratic norms.
Lessons from State Assemblies
Conflicts involving Speakers have frequently erupted in India’s state legislatures.
The constitutional crisis in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016—examined in the Nabam Rebia case—demonstrated how disputes involving the Speaker can destabilise entire governments.
Similarly, controversies in the Karnataka and Maharashtra assemblies during government transitions highlighted the enormous power wielded by presiding officers under the anti-defection law.
These episodes illustrate a recurring pattern.
When the neutrality of the Speaker is questioned, the legitimacy of legislative decisions itself comes under doubt.
The British Precedent
India’s parliamentary system borrows heavily from the traditions of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
In Britain, the neutrality of the Speaker is protected through powerful conventions.
Once elected, the Speaker resigns from his political party and contests future elections as a non-partisan candidate.
Major political parties traditionally do not field candidates against the Speaker in general elections.
These practices reinforce the perception that the Speaker belongs to the House rather than to any party.
India adopted the institutional structure of the Speakership but never fully internalised these conventions.
Historical Motions Against Speakers
Although the Constitution permits removal motions, such proceedings have been extremely rare.
One early example occurred in 1954 when a motion was proposed against the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha, G. V. Mavalankar.
During the debate, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru criticised the motion as politically damaging to parliamentary dignity. Yet he acknowledged the right of members to initiate such proceedings.
Subsequent attempts to move removal motions against Speakers—including those involving Hukam Singh and Balram Jakhar—never resulted in removal.
The Missing Deputy Speaker
The most troubling aspect of the current controversy is not the removal motion itself.
It is the absence of the constitutional office meant to manage such situations.
Article 93 requires the Lok Sabha to elect a Deputy Speaker “as soon as may be”.
Yet the office has remained vacant for extended periods.
This absence has far-reaching consequences.
The Deputy Speaker serves as:
• the presiding authority when the Speaker is absent
• the presiding officer during removal proceedings
• a structural counterbalance within the parliamentary hierarchy
Without a Deputy Speaker, these safeguards collapse.
Parliament at a Constitutional Crossroads
The debate over Om Birla’s removal is therefore more than a routine parliamentary confrontation.
It is a test of India’s constitutional culture.
If the Speaker is perceived as partisan, the authority of the Chair weakens.
If constitutional offices remain vacant, institutional safeguards disappear.
And if parliamentary conventions erode, the written Constitution alone cannot sustain democratic equilibrium.
When the framers designed the office of the Speaker, they assumed a political culture capable of respecting institutional neutrality.
Seventy-five years later, that assumption is being tested inside the Lok Sabha chamber itself.
The chair may not always be empty.
But the authority it symbolises depends on something far more fragile than rules.
It depends on trust.
Footnotes
1. Constitution of India, Articles 93–96, relating to election, removal and powers of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
2. Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha, Rules 9 and 200–203.
3. Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. XI, speech of B. R. Ambedkar, 25 November 1949.
4. Constituent Assembly Debates discussions involving Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar on parliamentary autonomy and legislative independence.
5. Parliamentary interventions of H. V. Kamath emphasising procedural safeguards within legislative functioning.
6. Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker (2016), emphasising neutrality of the Speaker during removal proceedings.
7. Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), establishing judicial review of Speaker’s decisions under the Tenth Schedule.
8. Shrimanth Balasaheb Patil v. Karnataka Legislative Assembly (2019) reaffirming limits on Speaker’s authority.
9. Parliamentary speech of Jawaharlal Nehru on the dignity and neutrality of the Speakership.
10. Comparative conventions of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom regarding Speaker neutrality.
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