Democracy in Danger; We Must Change the Law for Election of the Speaker

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Makers of Indian Constitution were individually and collectively proud of their concern for the country and were eager to finalize the Constitution for expediting emergence of Indian Republic. This eagerness made them make such mistakes, which in reality expedite the ruin of the Republic.

That, Indian Republic is in ruins does not need any proof, because we all have seen how the entire winter session of the Parliament collapsed as the Prime Minister of the tainted government did not agree with Opposition demand for constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate into the 2G Spectrum scam.

It was natural on part of Dr. Manmohan Singh not to agree for a JPC.

He has the experience of how injurious could be a JPC to his position.

In 1992, he had tendered his resignation after being held guilty by the JPC constituted to probe into the securities scam that owed its origin to his role as the Finance Minister of India. Many a Congress members of the Parliament had put tremendous pressure on everybody that mattered for removal of the adverse comment of the JPC on Dr. Singh; but the JPC did not buzz. He had to resign and he resigned from the post of the Finance Minister. If Prime Minister Narasingh Rao were not under the spell of Chandraswamy, his bed of tryst with the USA, Singh’s resignation should certainly been accepted and the country could surely been saved from the pernicious grip of the traitors that have transformed our democracy to plutocracy.

So, Manmohan Singh is bound to be afraid of JPC.

And, therefore, his government is not supposed to welcome the proposal for formation of JPC.

But was the consent of the government necessary for formation of the JPC? No. It was not at all necessary.

The Speaker should have constituted a JPC to probe into the spectrum scam and any or all other such financial loot that has occurred during Singh’s regime or even from the day the country has been subjected to globalization. But the Speaker did not appoint a JPC. This resulted in collapse of the entire session.

The year 2010 has progressed into 2011. But India will never progress into democracy again if the provision for election of the Speaker is not changed. As mentioned above, makers of our constitution, in absolute haste to expedite establishment of the Republic, have made many wrong provisions that have damaged our democracy. Article 93 as well as Article 178 are two such wrong provisions. both of these Articles are identical. They provide for election of the Speaker from amongst the members of the Houses. This provision equips the ruling party or ruling coalition to elect a person from its/their side as the Speaker and once elected, the power that position bestows upon the person is so alluring that it is not surprising if a Speaker sides with the government. If the role of Chatterjee in nuke deal matter in the last Loksabha could be cited as an instance, non-formation of JPC over the spectrum scam by the Speaker of the present Loksabha may not be any different.

Hence it is urgent that the Speaker should be a non-political person and should be directly elected by the people under direct supervision of the election commission. There must be a blatant ban on political parties taking any interest in the Speaker’s election. This is essential for health of Indian Parliament.

Otherwise, as Dr. Ambedkar had portended, Indian sovereignty would crumble down due to commission agents taking over as Prime Ministers and birds of their feathers in both the sides of the Houses creating environment of continuous adjournments and collapse of their businesses.