182. The Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council.—The Legislative Council of every State having such Council shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the Council to be respectively Chairman and Deputy Chairman thereof and, so often as the office of Chairman or Deputy Chairman becomes vacant, the Council shall choose another member to be Chairman or Deputy Chairman, as the case may be.
The Drafting Committee vide article 160 of its Draft Constitution (February, 1948) laid down as follows:
“160. The Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council.—The Legislative Council of every State having such Council, shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the Council to be respectively Chairman and Deputy Chairman thereof and, so often as the office of Chairman or Deputy Chairman becomes vacant, the Council shall choose another member to be Chairman or Deputy Chairman, as the case may be.”
When the draft article came up before the Constituent Assembly on 2 June, 1949, Naziruddin Ahmed moved an amendment that in article 160 for the word “another” the word “a” be substituted. He argued that his amendment gave right to a member who may have been meanwhile re-elected although he had lost his seat before.The amendment was negatived by the House when put to vote. At the revision stage, draft article 160 was renumbered and became article 182 of the Constitution adopted on 26 November, 1949.
So far as the Deputy Chairman of the Council is concerned, article 182 corresponds to article 89(2) of the Constitution which is in respect of the deputy presiding officer of the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and article 178 in regard to the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha. In case of Rajya Sabha, the Vice-President is its ex-officio Chairman while the Chairman of the Legislative Council at the State level is elected by the Council like the Deputy Chairman.
