Vacant Constitutional Posts; Whether Healthy in a Democracy?

India is the world’s largest democracy. The country’s Constitution vests supreme legislative power with Parliament, and places to codify facets of Indian society. The Indian Constitution is the basis for the democratic setup in India.

Vacant posts, which are causing a lot of trouble, are of two types – posts that are vacant for over 5 years and posts that are vacant for more than 10 years. These posts together contain more than 95 lakhs of vacancies. However, an argument is being put on the table that these vacant posts are not important to the government because they belong to the non-functional category. The non-appointment of a Deputy Speaker to the 17th Lok Sabha, even though nearly half of the term has passed, is the subject of this article.

The Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha are governed by Articles 93 to 97 of the Indian Constitution. According to Article 93, the Lok Sabha shall “as soon as maybe” choose one Member as the Speaker and another Member as the Deputy Speaker. Article 94 deals with the vacation of office, resignation, and removal of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker. Article 95 specifically states that while the office of Speaker is vacant the duties of the Speaker shall be performed by the Deputy Speaker. A reading of the aforementioned Articles reveals that the position of Deputy Speaker is a Constitutional one, and the Constitution requires that the Deputy Speaker be appointed by the Lok Sabha “as soon as possible.” Though the expression does not specify a time frame, a reasonable interpretation would be that the Speaker and Deputy Speaker should be appointed immediately after the Lok Sabha is formed. The phrase ‘as soon as possible’ appears in the same sentence in Article 93, referring to the Speaker and Deputy Speaker. As a result, both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker must be appointed within the same time frame. Appoint Speaker immediately whereas appointing Deputy Speaker whenever convenient can never be the interpretation!