Court notice on MPs' expulsion

The Delhi High Court today issued notices to the government, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats, the Election Commission and on petitions filed by eight of the 11 expelled MPs challenging their expulsion in the wake of "cash for query" scam.

While refusing to grant an interim relief to the expelled MPs, a Division Bench comprising Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma directed the respondents to file their replies by February 16.

The expelled MPs whose petitions came up for hearing are Chhatrapal Singh Lodha (Rajya Sabha), Suresh Chandel (Lok Sabha member from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh), Pradip Gandhi (Rajnandgaon), Yashwant Giridhar Mahajan (Jalgaon), Anna Saheb MK Patil (Erandol), Chandrapratap Singh (Sidhi), Manoj Kumar (Palamu) and Ram Sevak Singh (Gwalior).

Senior counsel PN Lekhi, appearing for the expelled BJP MPs, submitted that Parliament did not have the authority to expel MPs. "'Parliament has only the authority to suspend them," he argued.

Lekhi mentioned in the court that Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had made some derogatory remarks against the judiciary in newspapers saying the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the issue.

"'Nobody is bigger than the Constitution. The Speaker did not read the Preamble of the Constitution, otherwise he would not have given such a statement,"' he added.

Additional Solicitor-General PP Malhotra, appearing for the Union government, contended that the court did not have the authority to hear the matter.

Lekhi said that the petitioners had sought the court's directions restraining their expulsions besides directions to the Election Commission not to conduct any polls in these constituencies till the final decision was taken.

While alleging that the principles of natural justice were not observed, the MPs in their petitions had said that they were not given an opportunity of being heard to present their defence.

The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha had acted in haste and expelled them without giving due consideration to the privileges enjoyed by the petitioners as MPs, they alleged.

According to the petition, the appointment of the Pawan Kumar Bansal committee, which looked into the matter, was unjustified and the committee did not even give a chance to them to redress their grievances.

They said that they had been victimised by certain persons allegedly representing the media and thereafter punished merely on the basis of the media reports without giving due consideration to the privileges enjoyed by them.

The persons behind the sting operation had acted with ''malafide and greedy intention to earn a fast buck which was clear from the sale of the alleged footage to TV Channel Aaj Tak for a declared consideration of Rs 57 lakh...'', the petition said.

In all, 11 MPs were expelled from Parliament after 'Operation Duryodhan', showed them allegedly accepting bribe from undercover reporters posing as NGO representatives, to raise questions in the House.

A PIL has also been filed in the Supreme Court of India challenging the expulsion of the 11 MPs from Parliament.