The speaker of the Lok Sabha is the presiding officer of the Lower House of Parliament. He or she is responsible for the conduct of affairs and for the passage of laws by the House. The concept of the leader\/presiding officer was introduced in the Government of India Act, 1919. That was an offshoot of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, which were aimed at giving representation to Indians during British colonial rule. In the original 1919 law, the speaker and the deputy speaker were called the president and the vice president. The president and the vice president had more or less similar functions as the speaker and the deputy speaker have in the modern-day Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government of India Act was re-enacted in 1935, wherein the words president and vice president were replaced by speaker\/deputy speaker. Subsequently, when the Constitution of India came into force after independence, the posts of speaker and deputy speaker were retained without much deliberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 93 of the Constitution says, \u201cThe House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker.\u201d The Constitution also mandates that if the post of the speaker falls vacant, it should immediately be filled up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n