The Privileges Committee of Lok Sabha decided, on Friday, to ask Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to appear in its next meeting scheduled for August 30 to present his side of the story. This was the first meeting of the Parliamentary panel on the subject headed by BJP member Sunil Kumar Singh.
According to sources, 10 out of 14 members of the Privileges Committee attended the meeting and four of these members were from the INDIA parties. Mr. Chowdhury was named by Speaker Om Birla for “unruly conduct” on August 11, the last day of the Monsoon session and was suspended from the membership of Lok Sabha, pending a report from the Privileges Committee.
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Many members were of the opinion that Mr. Chowdhury has already been punished for his “misconduct”. Sources said that the predominant sentiment among the members was that the suspension should be withdrawn after the panel hearing from Mr. Chowdhury. “It is a globally held legal position that there can not be a double jeopardy. A person cannot be punished twice for the same offence,” a committee member said. Though no BJP member openly advocated revoking Mr. Chowdhury’s suspension, none opposed it either.
During the meeting, at least two members flagged that the Rajya Sabha has set a wrong precedent by keeping the members under suspension beyond the tenure of the session. Rajya Sabha Congress MP Rajani Patil was under suspension for three months after the budget session ended. Her suspension was revoked in the last week of the monsoon session, after the privileges committee of the Upper House met on a Saturday.
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The Opposition members also pointed out that Mr. Chowdhury, who heads the Public Accounts Committee, will not be holding meetings, because of his suspension. The Parliamentary rules dictate that a suspended member cannot attend any panel meetings.
Besides Mr. Singh, BJP members Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Raju Bista, Ganesh Singh, Janardan Sigriwal, Dilip Ghosh, DMK member T.R. Baalu, Congress member K. Suresh and Trinamool member Kalyan Banerjee attended the meeting on Friday.
