Holding DMK president M. Karunanidhi guilty of committing breach of privilege by “falsely attributing” certain comments to a Minister, the Tamil Nadu House Privileges Committee let him off with a “strong condemnation and warning” on Friday.
The Assembly, by a majority vote, adopted a resolution accepting the recommendations of the committee and censured the DMK leader amidst sloganeering by MLAs belonging to his party.
The committee had examined Mr. Karunanidhi’s statement in which he attributed certain comments to Housing Minister R. Vaithilingam. However, the Minister did not make any such comment in the House during the debate on demand for grants to his department on August 25 last year.
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He had apparently made the comments at a public forum. The committee said appropriate punishment should be meted out to Mr. Karunanidhi.
‘A lesson to other members’
The House Privileges Committee in its recommendations said Mr. Karunanidhi must be meted out punishment for violating the privileges to serve as a lesson to others. However, it recommended that considering his age, the House should express its strong condemnation and warn that he should not indulge in such mistakes.
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Acrimonious scenes prevailed when the recommendations of the committee were taken up for adoption. Even before it could be tabled by Deputy Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman, head of the Privileges Committee, DMK MLA Durai Murugan claimed since the report of the committee was distributed to the Members, they had the right to discuss it. The demand was turned down by Speaker P. Dhanapal.
Leader of the House O. Panneerselvam placed a resolution before Assembly to adopt the recommendations in the midst of sloganeering by the DMK members. Some members tore the copy of the report and squatted on the floor. After the resolution was adopted by a majority vote, the Speaker warned the DMK members not to disrupt proceedings. Since the appeal made no difference, he ordered the House marshals to remove them.
CPI (M) members urged the Speaker to allow them to discuss the report. To this, Mr. Dhanapal said an MLA of the party was present during the proceedings of the committee and his comments had been registered in the report.