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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