A seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court, while giving its verdict in the case related to the privilege of MPs and MLAs, has said that taking bribe for speech or vote in the Parliament or Legislature will not come under the purview of the privilege of the House.
This means that now if an MP or MLA takes bribe and gives a speech in the House or votes, then a criminal case can be filed against them in the court.
While giving the verdict on this matter, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said, “The purpose of legislative privileges is to give privileges to the House collectively.”
“Article 105/194 is meant to create a fear-free environment for members. Corruption and bribery are going to ruin parliamentary democracy.”
According to legal affairs website Live Law, the CJI, referring to the 1998 judgment in the PV Narasimha Rao case, said – “The judgment in the PV Narasimha Rao case creates a paradoxical situation, where an MLA who takes bribe and If he votes accordingly, he is safe.”
In 1998, a five-judge bench with a majority of 3-2 had ruled in the case of PV Narasimha Rao vs Republic of India that MLAs-MPs would be immune from criminal prosecution in cases of taking bribes for their speeches and votes in Parliament and Legislature. . This is their prerogative. This means that he cannot be prosecuted for any work done in the House.
According to the legal affairs website Bar & Bench, the CJI said – “While delivering today’s judgment, we disagree with the Narasimha Rao judgment and reject the judgment that MPs and MLAs can claim their privileges in the case of taking bribes. “
“No single MLA or MP can exercise such privilege. The privilege is given to the entire House collectively. “The decision given in the case of Narasimha Rao is contradictory to Articles 105 (2) and 194 of the Constitution.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has welcomed this decision of the Supreme Court. He wrote on Twitter that this decision will ensure clean politics.
what does the constitution say
Article 194 (2) of the Constitution says that no member of the Parliament or the Legislature of a State shall be answerable in any court for anything said in the House or for any vote given in the House.
Also, no person will be held accountable in any court regarding any report or publication of the Parliament or Legislature.
JMM MLA’s case and reference to Narasimha Rao decision
This new case came to light when the Supreme Court was hearing an alleged bribery case of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MLA Sita Soren. Sita Soren was accused of taking bribe to vote for an independent candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections in 2012.
In this case, the 1998 Supreme Court decision in the PV Narasimha Rao vs Republic of India case was cited.
In which it was said that no MP or MLA can be prosecuted in any court for whatever they say or do in the Parliament or Legislature.
In the year 2019, the bench of the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Abdul Nazeer and Justice Sanjeev Khanna heard the matter and said that P.V. The judgment given in Narasimha case is exactly similar and that judgment will be applicable here also.
However, the bench had said at that time that the Narasimha Rao case was decided by a narrow margin (3:2 majority among five judges) and hence the issue should be referred to a “larger bench”.
Today’s decision has been given by a bench of seven judges under the leadership of CJI Chandrachud. This bench consisted of Justice AS Bopanna, Justice MM Sundaresh, Justice PS Narasimha, Justice JB Pardiwala, Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Manoj Mishra.
What was PV Narasimha Rao’s case?
The Lok Sabha elections of 1991 were held after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. After losing power in 1989 due to the Bofors scam, Congress emerged as the largest party in 1991. It contested elections on 487 seats and won 232 seats. 272 seats were required to form the government.
Amidst all this PV Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister.
Narasimha Rao’s government faced many challenges, the biggest challenge of which was the economic crisis. It was during his government that the historic economic reforms of 1991 were carried out and the economy was liberalised.
But at the same time, big changes were also taking place at the political level in the country and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was at its peak under the leadership of BJP leader LK Advani. Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992.
Two years later, these two issues became the main reasons for bringing a no-confidence motion against the Narasimha Rao government.
On 26 July 1993, in the monsoon session, Ajoy Mukhopadhyay of CPI(M) moved a no-confidence motion against the Narasimha Rao government.
The reason for which was given – “Complete surrender before IMF and World Bank, bringing anti-people economic policies, unemployment is increasing, inflation is increasing. This is adversely affecting the interests of Indian industry and farmers.”
“The government is adopting a compromising attitude towards communal forces and that is why the Ayodhya incident happened. This government is failing to protect the secularism given in the Constitution. The government has failed in not punishing those responsible for the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya. happened.”
At that time there were 528 seats in the Lok Sabha and Congress had 251 seats. 13 more seats were needed to save the government. The debate on this proposal continued for three days.
When voting on the no-confidence motion took place on July 28, the no-confidence motion failed by 14 votes, 251 votes were cast in its favor and 265 votes were cast against it.
Three years after this voting, the bribery case came to light.
What did the Supreme Court say at that time
In its judgment in the year 1998, the Supreme Court, summarizing the case, had said that “Ravindra Kumar, a member of the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha, filed a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation, i.e. CBI, on February 1, 1996, alleging that in July 1993 ‘ Under a ‘criminal conspiracy’, Narasimha Rao, Satish Sharma, Ajit Singh, Bhajan Lal, VC Shukla, RK Dhawan and Lalit Suri had conspired to prove the government’s majority by bribing the MPs of political parties. For this, an amount of more than Rs 3 crore and for criminal conspiracy an amount of Rs 1.10 crore was given to Suraj Mandal.
CBI registered a case against JMM MPs in this case. The names of Mandal, Shibu Soren, Simon Marandi, Shailendra Mahato were included in this. At that time JMM had a total of six MPs.
Citing the CBI investigation, the court said, “JMM leaders have taken bribes to vote against the motion. And it was only because of his vote and the votes of some other MPs that Rao’s government was saved.”
At that time a bench of five judges had given the verdict in this case. Justice SP Bharucha had said in his decision at that time – “We are fully conscious of the seriousness of the crime committed by the alleged bribe takers. If this is true, he has traded the trust of the people he represents.”
“They have saved a government by taking money. But despite this, they are entitled to the protection that the Constitution gives them; our sense of outrage should not lead us to narrowly interpret the Constitution in a way that would affect the guarantees of parliamentary participation and protection of debate.” Read.”
