SC notice to Speaker, Centre on expulsions

Chatterjee had already said he won’t respond to any court notice on the issue. He felt LS had powers to pass a resolution expelling its members for misconduct and the judiciary had no jurisdiction to call into question an action of the House.

Pal’s counsel, Krishan Singh Chauhan, told the court that the LS which did not elect its members could not expel them either. He cited ‘‘principles of natural justice’’ by which ‘‘what you can’t create, you can’t destroy’’. He expanded this legal principle to imply that ‘‘even when you create, you have no right to destroy’’.

As it involves a complex constitutional question, the bench said a Constitution bench of five or seven judges would hear the matter.

Meanwhile, already onto the second sting probe exposing MPs misappropriating local area development funds, P K Bansal, chairman of the ad hoc LS committee, has upheld the primacy of Parliament in matters relating to MPs’ conduct and status.

Following the first meeting of the MPLADS scam probe, Bansal cited three areas—including impeachment of judges and expulsion of MPs—in which Parliament has the final say over judiciary.

The Bansal Committee’s role has assumed importance as 10 MPs were expelled from the LS based on its report on the cash-for-questions scam.

Ruling out any chances of referring the MPLADS probe to the LS Ethics Commitee as demanded by BJP, Bansal has said such an option is not before the Commission.

But sources said the seven-member Bansal Committee may require more time than given. The panel is scheduled to submit its report to Chatterjee on January 31. Sources said the panel’s meeting got delayed as the TV channel that carried out the sting took some time to submit the tapes. Today’s meeting, chaired by Bansal, was attended by V K Malhotra (BJP), Mohd Salim (CPI-M), Devendra Prasad Yadav (RJD), K Kuppuswamy (DMK), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP) and Prasanna Acharya (BJD). Acharya is also chairman of the Standing Committee on MPLADS.