Justice Rohinton Nariman to head three-member panel

Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton F Nariman will now head the three-member panel set up by Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari to probe sexual harassment charge against Justice S K Gangele of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
Earlier, another apex court judge, Justice Ranjan Gogoi was named chairman of the panel following the retirement of Justice Vikramjit Sen on December 31 last.
A Rajya Sabha bulletin said now Justice Nariman will head the panel. It gave no reasons on as to why Justice Gogoi has left the panel.
The other members of the committee -- Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court Justice Manjula Chellur and jurist K K Venugopal would continue to serve, the bulletin said.

One of the arguments of the government while refusing to
discuss the political instability in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the Rajya Sabha, despite the demand of Congress was that the issue was sub-judice.

The committee examined a large number of instances from the past in which the Chair has said that a sub judice matter should not be referred to in the House.
Under Article 105 of the Constitution, MPs enjoy freedom of speech in Parliament but this freedom of speech is limited by certain rules putting restrictions upon members for raising the matters, which are before the court.

The issue of discussion on sub judice matters has been raised in Rajya Sabha in the past also.
The panel noted that with changing times, debates on many high profile cases, which are pending in courts take place regularly in media, particularly the electronic media and felt in view of this, self-imposed restriction on right to free speech by MPs in Rajya Sabha with regard to sub judice matters needs to be reviewed.
The panel also deliberated at length on the issue of the Rules of Proceedures and Conduct of Business in Rajya Sabha relating to expunction of words from the proceedings in the light of live telecast of House proceedings.

The main point of consideration was whether it was justifiable to expunge an unparliamentary word or sentence.
Some members including the Leader of House Jaitley were of the view that to overcome this situation, the realtime live telecast of the proceedings of the House may be delayed for few minutes as is done in the case of live telecast of a Cricket match.
Sources said that the members suggested a five-minute gap between actual proceedings of the House and telecast of the same.
However, Chairman Ansari and some other members viewed that it will always not be possible for the Chair to decide on the expunction of any word of sentence within such a short span of time.

The panel agreed with the suggestion of Congress member Vijay Jawaharlal Darda of allowing MPs to wear national flag in the form of a lapel pin in the House. The convention and a ruling from the Chair in 1985 disallows Upper House members from wearing any badge, including the National Flag as lapel pin, in the House.
The committee also approved a proposal of replacing the sound system in Rajya Sabha Chamber, noting that the existing sound system there has outlived its life.
On the issue of adjournment of the House on the death of sitting member, ministers, former Primer Ministers, the panel concluded the practice of adjourning the House for the day in case of death of a sitting member during the session period should remain.

It, however, decided that the practice of adjourning the House for the day on the first day of the assembly in case of the death of a sitting member during inter-session period should be done away with and instead the House may be adjourned for an hour as a mark of respect after making the obituary reference.