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Somnath rejects privilege notices against Manmohan

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Friday rejected the privilege notices submitted by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Disallowing the notices, the Speaker said “non-implementation of an assurance given by a Minister on the floor of the House is neither a breach of privilege nor a contempt of the House.”

Five CPI (M) members had submitted privilege notices against the Prime Minister for not abiding by an assurance he had given Parliament during the trust vote discussion in July. Stating that the Prime Minister had assured the Lok Sabha that he would consult Parliament before operationalising the India-U.S. Nuclear Agreement, the members said signing the deal ahead of the session amounted to a breach of privilege and contempt of the House.

While making his ruling, the Speaker quoted extensively from Kaul & Shakdher — the authoritative work on Parliamentary procedure. Also, according to him, rules did not permit the Lok Sabha to take up a privilege notice against a member of the Rajya Sabha. As per Kaul and Shakdher, “Neither House of Parliament can claim or exercise any authority over a member of the other House. Consequently, neither House can take upon itself to punish any breach of privilege of contempt offered to it by a member or officer of the other House.”

On the question of referring the matter to the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha, Mr. Chatterjee said that as per established procedure, the presiding officer of the House — where the issue is raised — has to be satisfied that a breach of privilege has been committed. Since there was no breach of privilege, the Speaker said there was no need to refer the privilege notices to the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha.

The CPI (M) members who had submitted privilege notices against Dr. Singh were Basudeb Acharia, Rupchand Pal, Varkala Radhakrishnan, N. N. Krishna Das and P. Rajendran. Besides, K. Yerrannaidu of the Telugu Desam Party had submitted a separate privilege notice against the Prime Minister on the same charge.

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