National
Speaker refrains from invoking new rule
By Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, DEC. 11. Barely a week after the new rule of automatic suspension for MPs came into effect, incensed Opposition members today stormed the well of the Lok Sabha over the ``Kargil Coffins issue'' and staged a sit-in.
After a meeting with the Opposition leaders and reviewing the day's developments in the House which witnessed repeated adjournments, it was thought ``appropriate'' to refrain from invoking the rule of automatic suspension of members if they entered the well of the House to protest or make a point.
Though the Lok Sabha Speaker was armed with the new rule of ``automatic suspension'', sources in the Lok Sabha said that the spirit of rule was to facilitate proper conduct of proceedings by preventing members from entering the well of the House and disturbing the proceedings.
According to a spokesman in the Speaker's Office, in the extraordinary situation that prevailed in the House today, almost the entire Opposition was agitated over a particular issue and most of them entered the well of the House.
Sources said there was no justification for suspending the entire Opposition, in whose absence the House could not function normally.
Under the new amended rules which came into force on December 6, a member who goes into the well and is named by the Speaker stands automatically suspended for the next five sittings of the House or the remainder of the session if fewer than five sittings are left.
The MP will have to immediately leave the House once named by the Speaker.
The suspension could be terminated only if a motion recommending this is moved and approved by the House.
On today's disturbance in the Lok Sabha, the BJP spokesman, Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, said this was a ``black day'' in the history of Parliament when slogans were raised, papers were torn and the well was stormed.
He said the action of the Opposition members showed that the recent code of conduct which was approved with a consensus had been ripped apart.
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