Opposition submits notice seeking Birla's removal as LS Speaker, what next?

After brief disruptions and prompt adjournments in the first half of Tuesday (February 10), Lok Sabha returned to normal functioning at 2 PM with the Opposition agreeing to allow discussion on the Union Budget to commence. Yet, it was clear that a rapprochement between Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and the Opposition, particularly the Congress, was on cards.

A day after the Opposition made known its intent to seek the removal of the Lok Sabha Speaker, Birla made himself scarce from Parliament’s Lower House, leaving proceedings to be presided over by the panel of chairpersons.

‘No-confidence motion against Speaker’

At 1:14 PM, Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress party’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha, alongwith party MPs K Suresh and Mohammed Jawed, met Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh and “submitted a notice for no-confidence motion against the Speaker”.

Also Read: INDIA bloc offers hard-to-accept truce to Speaker Birla amid no-confidence talk

Sources in the Lok Sabha Secretariat confirmed to The Federal that the notice had been received and that Birla had “instructed that it be examined and appropriate next steps initiated”. Congress sources said as many as 118 MPs from INDIA bloc parties, including the DMK, the Samajwadi Party, the RJD, NCP-SP, Shiv Sena-UBT, and various Left parties, had endorsed the notice.

TMC refuses to endorse, but AAP joins

The only major Opposition bloc that refused to endorse the notice was Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), which was of the view that the Congress party should have first made an appeal to Birla, listing its grievances and giving him three days to respond, instead of directly moving the motion seeking the Speaker’s removal.

Trinamool insiders, however, told The Federal that the party will support the motion on the floor of the House if it is admitted and taken up for discussion. Interestingly, the Aam Aadmi Party, which had formally severed ties with the INDIA bloc a year ago and has since maintained its distance from the Congress party, has also decided to support the motion when it is taken up for discussion.

Also Read: No-confidence motion against Speaker Birla: Will INDIA bloc unite? | Capital Beat

AAP MP Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer confirmed to The Federal that his party’s MPs will support the motion as Birla’s conduct of House proceedings is “unfair and completely pro-government”, though he added that neither he nor his party colleagues had signed the notice submitted by the Congress as “we were not approached for signatures”.

Speaker called ‘blatantly partisan’

The notice, moved under Article 94(C) of the Constitution, cites Birla’s “blatantly partisan” conduct of House proceedings as the cause for seeking his removal as Speaker and proceeds to reiterate the four grounds that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had laid out on Monday after news of the Opposition’s move became public.

The notice states that the LoP and other Opposition MPs had “not been allowed to speak, which is their basic democratic right in Parliament” and that eight Opposition MPs (seven from the Congress and one from the CPM) had been “arbitrarily suspended” for the remainder of the Budget Session on February 3, merely for exercising their democratic rights”.

The notice further points out that the Speaker had allowed a BJP MP (Nishikant Dubey) to make “wholly objectionable and personalised attacks on two former prime ministers without being reprimanded even once” and that despite repeated requests from the Opposition, “no action has been taken against this particular member of Parliament”.

Finally, the notice refers to Birla’s statement, made in Lok Sabha last Thursday, claiming that he had asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stay away from replying to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address last Wednesday as he had “definite information” that several Congress MPs planned to create “an unprecedented incident after reaching the Honourable Prime Minister’s seat”.

The notice slams Birla for casting “blatantly false allegations” against Congress MPs and adds, “the Speaker, who is required to be custodian of the Rules of Procedures and the norms of parliamentary decorum, chose the floor of the House to make such statements, which is indicative of an abuse of his constitutional office.”

What happens next?

A senior Congress MP told The Federal that the Opposition was “hopeful” of the motion being admitted and that the “discussion on it will happen only after the session reconvenes after recess (post March 9) because as per rules the motion can only be taken up after 14 days from the date of receipt of the resolution”.

As reported by The Federal earlier, the Opposition understands that its motion seeking Birla’s removal from office is bound to be negated as it is well short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha. Article 94(C), under which the Opposition has moved the notice, stipulates that the Speaker can be “removed from his office by a resolution of the House of the People passed by a majority of all the then members of the House”, which means that for the Opposition’s motion to be carried, it would need at least 273 MPs to rise in its support; a strength the 234-member INDIA bloc would find impossible to muster even if non-allied outfits like the Akali Dal, AIMIM and the YSRCP voted alongside it.

What would also be interesting to see is whether the motion is admitted in the first place, considering that the Rules of Procedure of the Lok Sabha lay down very specific criteria for admission of such a resolution. Rule 200A states that a resolution seeking the Speaker’s removal can be admitted only if it satisfies three clear criteria: “(i) it shall be specific with respect to charges; (ii) it shall be clearly and precisely expressed; and (iii) it shall not contain arguments, inferences, ironical expressions, imputations or defamatory statements.”

What if the motion is admitted?

If the motion does get admitted, the Opposition will also be interested in finding out who would preside over the discussion on the resolution, considering that Birla will no longer be able to discharge that role when the discussion is underway. Under normal circumstances, if such a resolution is moved against the Speaker, the responsibility to preside over the discussion on the motion would fall on the Deputy Speaker, a post that by convention, is used to be extended to the Opposition benches by the party or alliance in power to keep up the bipartisan traditions of Parliament. However, since 2019, the Modi government has not allowed for an election to take place for the Deputy Speaker’s post, which has, thus, been lying vacant.

Also Read: Rahul Gandhi’s Naravane memoir remarks: What Lok Sabha rules say

Article 95 of the Constitution lays down two stipulations for a situation when the Speaker’s post is vacant or the Speaker is unable to discharge the role (as would be the case if and when the motion seeking his removal is discussed). The Article states, “While the office of Speaker is vacant, the duties of the office shall be performed by the Deputy Speaker or, if the office of Deputy Speaker is also vacant, by such member of the House of the People as the President may appoint for the purpose” and “During the absence of the Speaker from any sitting of the House of the People the Deputy Speaker or, if he is also absent, such person as may be determined by the rules of procedure of the House, or, if no such person is present, such other person as may be determined by the House, shall act as Speaker.”