India Intelligence Report
 

Speaker Defends Supension

 

Striking a defiant note, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said that the expulsion of the 10 Members of Parliament in the "cash-for-query" scam is "non-justiciable." Rejecting the notion that votes given by members of the Parliament can be challenged in court, he took responsibility for the secretariat not accepting any notice or orders from the Supreme Court. Last December 19, a TV show showed ten MPs taking bribes on hidden camera to ask questions in the Parliament. When the video was aired, a resolution in the Parliament expelled the MPs on Dec 22. Thereafter, 9 of them filed cases in the Delhi High Court and 1 in the Supreme Court asking for right to a fair hearing. Chatterjee convened an all-party meeting to discuss his position not to accept or respond to court notices. All political parties agreed to this position, although the Bharatiya Janata Party had said the decision should be communicated to the court through a lawyer. Thereafter an "emergency" meeting of presiding officers endorsed Chatterjee's stand. Chatterjee had constituted a 7-member inquiry committee to follow through with the allegation of TV channel by Jan 31. On Feb 15 party leaders met with Chatterjee deciding that the members facing the enquiry should not attend the session or any committee. However, this decision did not preclude the suspect members signing the roster, being evicted from their residences, or their positions being listed as vacant. This is what the MPs claim in their lawsuit that although they were asked not to participate in Parliamentary proceedings or committees, they were being hanged pending inquiry. The Constitutional questions are whether the Parliament proceedings are beyond purview of the court, Parliament has the right to interpret law, and Parliament is beyond judicial review. While the Indian Constitution allows the Parliament to make the laws, it defines the judiciary as the mechanism to interpret it. While the Constitution allows for creating policy through the interpretation of loopholes in law in a process called "judicial activism," there is no scope for the Parliament to interpret law. It will be very interesting to see how this will be worked out since there is no forum or appellate mechanism to deal with such questions.

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