‘House, not court, has primacy on MP expulsion’

Though Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is in no way reconsidering his decision ‘‘not to respond’’ to the court noti...

Though Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is in no way reconsidering his decision ‘‘not to respond’’ to the court notice sent to Parliament on the expulsion of 11 MPs in the cash-for-question scam, he has called an all-party meeting on January 20 to discuss the issue.

The Delhi High Court notice to the Rajya Sabha, Lok Sabha, the Election Commission and the Centre seems to have put the judiciary on a collision course with the legislature. ‘‘I have consulted all the top lawyers of the country over and above my own understanding of the law. I have invited some lawyers to the meeting in case any of the party leaders wants a clarification on the issue,’’ Chatterjee said.

The Speaker also said that neither he nor any of the leading legal minds of the country have any doubt over the fact that the matter of expulsion of MPs by Parliament could not be questioned in the court of law. ‘‘I have clarified that I am not going to respond to the court order on this. Parliament has primacy on this issue. However, if someone—MPs or leaders of the political leaders—wants clarification it would explained to them,’’ he added.

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He said letters inviting different parties to attend had already been sent and he also had a talk with the Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is the Leader of the House in Lok Sabha.

All the 11 MPs—Chhatrapal Singh Lodha (Rajya Sabha), Suresh Chandel, Pradip Gandhi, Yashwant Giridhar Mahajan, Anna Saheb M.K. Patil, Chandrapratap Singh, Manoj Kumar and Ram Sevak Singh—were expelled from Parliament on the last day of the Winter session of Parliament. Subsequently, five of them have filed cases in the courts challenging their expulsion on the ground that they were elected by the people and hence their elected status could not be cancelled by Parliament.