Indian Polity Quiz: Speaker and Parliamentary Committees

The correct answer is B, Article 93. Article 93 of the Constitution provides that the House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker, and that whenever either office becomes vacant the House shall choose another member to fill it. The election is held on a date fixed by the President and is decided by a simple majority of those present and voting. Option A is wrong because Article 89 is the matching provision for the Rajya Sabha, which deals with the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of States, and the Vice-President is the ex officio Chairman there. Option C is wrong because Article 97 only charges the salaries and allowances of these presiding officers on the Consolidated Fund of India. Option D is wrong because Article 100 covers voting in the Houses, the casting vote of the presiding officer and the quorum of one-tenth of the total membership.

The correct answer is B, a majority of all the then members of the House. Article 94(c) says the Speaker or Deputy Speaker may be removed from office by a resolution of the House of the People passed by a majority of all the then members of the House, and the proviso requires fourteen days notice of the intention to move such a resolution. This is the effective majority, counted on the strength of the House excluding vacancies, not on those merely present. Option A is wrong because a simple majority is what elects the Speaker under Article 93, not what removes the Speaker. Options C and D are wrong because a two-thirds majority is nowhere required for the Speaker; it belongs to other provisions, such as the removal of a judge or the impeachment of the President, and examiners place it here as a deliberate trap. Note also that Article 96 bars the Speaker from presiding while such a resolution is being considered.

The correct answer is B. The proviso to Article 94 states that the Speaker shall not vacate office on the dissolution of the House of the People but shall continue to hold it until immediately before the first meeting of the next Lok Sabha. The reason is practical: the office must survive so that someone can authenticate records, exercise the powers of the House in the interval and hand over an orderly House to the new Speaker. Option A is wrong precisely because of this proviso, which makes the Speaker an exception to the rule that the House and its members go with dissolution. Option C is wrong because the President appoints only a Speaker pro tem, and that is to swear in the members of the new House after it is constituted, not to fill a gap after dissolution. Option D is wrong because the Rajya Sabha is a permanent House that is never dissolved, and its Chairman has no role in Lok Sabha business except at a joint sitting in the Speaker absence.

The correct answer is B. Article 100(1) provides that the Speaker or the person acting as Speaker shall not vote in the first instance, but shall have and exercise a casting vote in the case of an equality of votes. The purpose is to keep the chair above party contest while still giving the House a way out of a deadlock. Option A is wrong because voting in the first instance on every question is what an ordinary member does, and the chair is deliberately denied that right. Option C is wrong because the Speaker role in Money Bills is a different one altogether: under Article 110(4) the Speaker certifies whether a Bill is a Money Bill, and that certificate is final and cannot be questioned in any court. Option D is wrong because the Speaker is a full member of the House and does vote in two situations, namely a casting vote under Article 100 and a first-instance vote on a resolution for the Speaker own removal under Article 96.

The correct answer is B. The Public Accounts Committee has twenty-two members, fifteen elected by the Lok Sabha and seven by the Rajya Sabha, each by proportional representation through the single transferable vote, for a term of one year. Its chairperson is appointed by the Speaker from among its Lok Sabha members, and since 1967 the convention has been to appoint a member of the Opposition. The committee examines the appropriation accounts and the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Option A is wrong because fifteen is only the Lok Sabha share of the committee, not its total strength. Option C is wrong because thirty, all drawn from the Lok Sabha, is the Estimates Committee, which has no Rajya Sabha representation at all. Option D is wrong because thirty-one, split twenty-one and ten, is the size of each Departmentally Related Standing Committee. The Committee on Public Undertakings, like the Public Accounts Committee, has twenty-two members.

The correct answer is A, John Mathai. The Estimates Committee was set up in 1950 on the suggestion of John Mathai, who was then the Union Finance Minister, and it consists of thirty members, all elected from the Lok Sabha; the Rajya Sabha has no representation on it. Its chairperson is appointed by the Speaker, a minister cannot be a member, and its function is to examine the Budget estimates, suggest economies and propose alternative forms of presenting the estimates, which is why it is called the continuous economy committee. Option B is wrong because the Krishna Menon Committee recommended the Committee on Public Undertakings, which was constituted in 1964. Option C is wrong because G. V. Mavalankar was the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha and is called the Father of the Lok Sabha, but the Estimates Committee is not named to his recommendation. Option D is wrong because C. D. Deshmukh, though a Finance Minister and earlier a Governor of the Reserve Bank, is not associated with the creation of this committee.

The correct answer is C, 31 members. Each Departmentally Related Standing Committee has thirty-one members, of whom twenty-one are nominated by the Speaker from the Lok Sabha and ten by the Chairman from the Rajya Sabha. The system began in 1993 with seventeen such committees and was reorganised in 2004, after which twenty-four committees cover the whole of the Union Government. A minister cannot be a member, and the term is one year. These committees examine the demands for grants of their ministries, Bills referred to them, annual reports and long-term policy documents. Option A is wrong because twenty-two is the strength of the Public Accounts Committee and of the Committee on Public Undertakings. Option B is wrong because twenty-five does not correspond to any parliamentary committee and is a pure distractor. Option D is wrong because forty-five is not the size of any standing committee; the figure thirty, split twenty and ten, belongs to the Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The correct answer is B. The chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee is appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha from among the Lok Sabha members of the committee, and since 1967 the settled convention has been to appoint a member belonging to the Opposition, which strengthens the committee as an instrument of accountability. A Rajya Sabha member of the committee cannot be made chairperson. Option A is wrong because the members elect nobody to the chair; they are themselves elected to the committee by proportional representation, but the chair is filled by appointment. Option C is wrong because the Prime Minister has no role at all here, and allowing the head of the government to choose the chair of the committee that audits the government would defeat its purpose. Option D is wrong because the Deputy Speaker is the ex officio chairperson of the Committee on Private Members Bills and Resolutions, not of the Public Accounts Committee; the Speaker chairs the Business Advisory, Rules and General Purposes Committees.

The correct answer is C, the Tenth Schedule. The Tenth Schedule, inserted by the Fifty-second Amendment Act of 1985, carries the anti-defection provisions, and Paragraph 6 of that Schedule says that a question of disqualification on the ground of defection shall be decided by the Chairman or the Speaker of the House concerned, whose decision is final. In Kihoto Hollohan against Zachillhu in 1992 the Supreme Court held that while deciding such a question the Speaker acts as a tribunal, so the decision is open to judicial review on limited grounds. Option A is wrong because the Eighth Schedule lists the languages recognised by the Constitution. Option B is wrong because the Ninth Schedule, added by the First Amendment in 1951, protects certain laws, mostly land reform laws, from challenge. Option D is wrong because the Twelfth Schedule, added by the Seventy-fourth Amendment, lists the eighteen subjects of municipalities.

The correct answer is B, G. V. Mavalankar. Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar was the Speaker of the Constituent Assembly when it sat as a legislature and then became the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 1952, which is why he is remembered as the Father of the Lok Sabha; many of the conventions of the chair were laid down in his time. Option A is wrong because Sachchidananda Sinha was the temporary or provisional president of the Constituent Assembly at its first sitting in December 1946, after which Rajendra Prasad was elected its permanent president. Option C is wrong because M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar was the first Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha and only later became Speaker, on Mavalankar death. Option D is wrong because Hukam Singh held the office of Speaker in the 1960s, well after the first term, and is not the first holder of the chair.

The correct answer is B. Article 97 provides that the salaries and allowances of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House of the People and of the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of States shall be such as Parliament may by law determine, and these are charged on the Consolidated Fund of India. A charged expenditure is not submitted to the vote of Parliament, which protects the independence of the office from the government of the day. Option A is wrong for exactly that reason: charged expenditure can be discussed but not voted. Option C is wrong because the Contingency Fund of India, under Article 267, is an imprest placed at the disposal of the President to meet unforeseen expenditure pending authorisation by Parliament; it is not used for regular salaries. Option D is wrong because these salaries are determined by Parliament by law and not by the President at discretion.

The correct answer is A. The Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee are called the twin sisters of financial control because together they cover both ends of the spending cycle. The Estimates Committee looks at money about to be spent, examining the Budget estimates and suggesting economies, which earns it the name of continuous economy committee. The Public Accounts Committee looks at money already spent, examining appropriation accounts and the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is why its work is called a post-mortem of expenditure. Option B is wrong because the Business Advisory Committee only allots time for government business and is chaired by the Speaker. Option C is wrong because the Rules Committee frames and amends the rules of procedure and is not a financial committee, although the Committee on Public Undertakings is indeed the third financial committee. Option D is wrong because the Committee of Privileges and the Committee on Petitions deal with breaches of privilege and with citizens petitions respectively.