Editorial 1 : What are the duties of a Speaker?
Context
The President has appointed seven-time MP Bhartruhari Mahtab as the ‘Speaker pro tem’ of the 18th Lok Sabha.
Who is Speaker pro tem?
- Article 94 of the Constitution states that the Speaker of the Lok Sabha shall not vacate his/her office until immediately before the first meeting of the Lok Sabha after its dissolution.
- This is to ensure that the office of the Speaker is never left vacant. Hence, Om Birla who was the Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha continues in that post till June 24 when the first meeting of the 18th Lok Sabha is scheduled.
- Article 95(1) of the Constitution provides that when the post of Speaker and Deputy Speaker is vacant, the President shall appoint a member of the Lok Sabha to perform the duties of the Speaker. This would be the situation when the first meeting of a new Lok Sabha commences.
- Hence, the President appoints ‘Speaker pro tem’ under this provision till the full-time Speaker is elected. The term ‘pro tem’ means ‘for the time being’ or ‘temporary’.
- This term is not found in the Constitution or rules of Lok Sabha but is a conventional term which finds mention in the ‘Handbook on the working of Ministry of Parliamentary affairs.’
- As per tradition, one of the senior-most members of the Lok Sabha is selected by the government, who is then administered oath by the President.
- The Speaker pro tem administers oath of office to other MPs and presides over the election of full-time Speaker.
How are the Speaker and Deputy Speaker elected?
- Article 93 of the Constitution states that the Lok Sabha shall choose two members to be its Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
- The election of the Speaker is held on a date fixed by the President. All the Speakers in independent India have been elected unopposed.
- The election of Deputy Speaker is held on a date fixed by the Speaker.
What is the role of the Speaker?
- Apart from the conduct of business, the Speakers perform two important constitutional functions of certifying a Bill to be a Money Bill (over which the Rajya Sabha has limited role), and deciding on disqualification under the Tenth Schedule for defection.
- The Lok Sabha rules provide the Speaker with the powers of referral of Bills introduced to Standing Committees and suspension of members for grave disorder up to a maximum of five days.
- Referral of Bills to committees have declined from 71% during 2009-14 to 16% during 2019-24.
- With the return of a coalition government, it is expected that the Speaker would refer important Bills to Standing committees for scrutiny.
- There were also large-scale suspensions of Opposition MPs during the winter session of 2023. Such suspensions affect the robust functioning of Parliament and should be carried out with restraint.
What are the conventions?
- In Britain, the Speaker once elected to his/her office, resigns from the political party to which he/she belonged.
- In subsequent elections to House of Commons, he/she seeks election not as a member of any political party but as ‘The Speaker seeking re-election’.
- This is to reflect his/her impartiality while presiding over the House.
- While the Tenth Schedule allows a Speaker to resign from their political party on being elected to their office, it has never been done by any Speaker till date.
- Resignation from their political parties on being elected as Speaker could be a first step towards demonstrating independence.
- The Deputy Speaker is an important constitutional officer who steps in during the vacancy or absence of the Speaker.
- The convention of offering the post of Deputy Speaker to the Opposition started in the year 1991.
- Thereafter, till the 16th Lok Sabha this has been followed without a break.
Conclusion
It was a travesty of the Constitution that no Deputy Speaker was elected in the 17th Lok Sabha. The healthy convention of the post being held by Opposition should return in the current Lok Sabha.
Editorial 2 : Indian Railways and safety challenges
Introduction
The dust and din have not settled since the tragic accident involving the GFCJ container train (goods train), which, while travelling at high speed, rammed into the 13174 Agartala-Sealdah Kanchanjunga Express, resulting in 11 deaths and approximately 40 injuries.
The underlying issues
- Thanks to focused measures like closing unmanned level crossings and emphasising track maintenance, the safety record of Indian Railways in terms of fatalities and injuries has certainly improved.
- However, comparing this data to past records to paint a rosy picture is misleading.
- Modern systems and tools make achieving a zero-fatality record an attainable goal, and this is what the Railways should be pursuing.
- Moreover, the Union government’s substantial investment, allocating nearly 25% of its total capex to railways, makes funding all safety works well within the Indian Railway’s reach.
- The non-availability of resources cannot be a red herring any more.
- A statutory inquiry by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) is under way, and the cause and responsibility for the accident will soon be determined.
- It is almost a foregone conclusion that the crew of the GFCJ container train, the station master, and perhaps even the signal maintainer will be held responsible for ignoring the stipulated Automatic Signal territory protocol.
- This pattern of assigning blame to lower level functionaries repeats with each serious accident.
- There are other issues which may or may not be routine and beg more attention.
- First, the information management and communication of Indian Railways. Even as facts about the accident were still emerging, the Chairperson of the Railway Board prematurely declared the container train crew’s disregard of signals as the prima facie cause.
- She also stated that both crew members had died. While the former is proving to be only partially true, the latter was an insensitive and erroneous statement as the assistant loco pilot has survived.
- When questioned about the slow rollout of Kavach, an indigenous signalling system that also prevents collisions, she cited limited capacity in the supporting industry as a main reason.
- If industrial capacity is lacking, it is the Indian Railway’s responsibility to encourage and nurture the allied industry with meaningful assurances so they invest in capacity building.
- Notably, the Railways decided to adopt the Kavach system after extensive trials over 1,400 kilometres on the Southern Central Railway nearly three years ago, preferring it over the established European system, ETCS Level II.
- The project has been a work in progress since then. Such slow execution of a project indicates a lack of focus on safety works.
- If that is indeed the case, there is no harm in installing ETCS Level II in some important sections while Kavach matures.
- Kavach is under implementation on the Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai sections, but the target for completion has been missed.
- The CRS’ report on the Vizianagaram train accident emphasised the priority implementation of Kavach in Automatic Signalling territories, as they are prone to collisions, and suggested faster installation in locomotives and trains ahead of ground installations to increase the probability, if not guarantee, of preventing collisions.
- The Railways should fixate on the trunk routes and Automatic Signalling territories for faster installation of Kavach, aiming for 4,000 to 5,000 km/year, which is achievable.
- Indian Railways, like many government entities, is overstaffed. However, there are some safety-critical categories where work is intensely continuous, such as loco crew, train manager, station master, pointsman and signal maintainer.
- Any vacancies in these categories mean stress and overwork for the existing staff.
- Carrying such vacancies to save some expenditure is self-defeating. Although there are nearly 20,000 vacancies for loco pilot/assistant loco pilot positions.
- A related issue is the inaction in employing AI-enabled applications to improve safety post mortems and provide actionable alerts.
- Extensive digital data from station data loggers and microprocessors on locomotives and trains can be effectively managed by AI, filtering out the irregularities to precipitate the grave ones and projecting them regularly to the very top of railway management.
Conclusion
A big question is whether the accident was an aberration or if similar near misses are commonplace in the affected section. If the enquiry shows that such incidents were indeed frequent, it would point to a grave management failure.