Jagdeep Dhankhar: Privilege of MPs for freedom of speech in House not unqualified

Referring to Article 105, Dhankhar — while addressing the 61st convocation of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute — said, “I want to place before you a pain of mine… India is the world’s biggest democracy. Our parliament is the biggest temple of our democracy. There can be neither civil nor criminal proceedings against anybody who speaks in that temple of democracy… Our Constitution makers have given that right to our MPs so that they can speak in Parliament in a fearless manner…That is a privilege but we tend to overlook one thing… that privilege is not unqualified.”

“This privilege comes with very heavy responsibility and that responsibility is that every word spoken in Parliament must be after due thought, after due consideration. It can’t be based on unverified situations. The Parliament cannot be turned into an ‘akhara’ (battlefield) where there is free fall of information,” he said. Dhankhar said it was the responsibility of the members that whatever is said in Parliament is bona fide.

He said according to rules, it was the duty of the Chair to ensure nothing said injures the reputation of anyone outside the House. “Because if the same thing is said outside the House, the affected person can file a defamation case,” he said.

His remarks are significant as it comes at a time when the Congress is unhappy about his decision to expunge several remarks made by Kharge in his speech on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, including some alleging links between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and businessman Gautam Adani. Kharge later wrote to Dhankhar, arguing that criticism of the government, its policies and their impact cannot be equated with the dignity of the House.

Dhankhar also spoke about disruption and disturbance in Parliament. Parliament, he said, is meant for dialogue, debate, discussion and deliberations.

“When there is disruption and disturbance … I get inputs from thousands of people that they are upset with such behaviour,” he said. Dhankhar said people should think seriously and be concerned about both these issues because since India is now unstoppable and its rise is exponential, there could be attempts to derail it using baseless criteria from many quarters. “It is the job of the intelligentsia and every person, particularly young minds, to take note of it and neutralise it,” he said.