The manner of voting by MPs in Parliament, even in lieu of bribes, cannot be questioned in courts as Constitution gives a complete immunity to MPs in this regard, former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao told the Delhi High Court yesterday.
Concluding a marathon five-day-long arguments challenging the framing of charges against Rao in the multi-crore JMM bribery case, counsel for the former premier told Justice Jaspal Singh that Article 105(2) of the Constitution guranteed a complete immunity to MPs from any court proceedings in regard to votes cast by them in Parliament.
Raos counsel R K Anand said no inference could be drawn in support of the allegations of bribery from the voting pattern during the no-confidence motion of July 28, 1993, which the minority Congress government won by a margin of 14 votes (251 for and 265 against).
As expected, former Union minister Satish Sharma, who is charged in the case, towed the Constitutional-immunity line of defence adopted by the former premier, with his counsel P P Malhotra telling the court that there was not even a shred of evidence against his client and the chargesheet was based only on surmises and conjectures.
Karnataka-based liquor baron M Thimme Gowdas counsel M C Bhandare began his arguments yesterday and denied any knowledge of the conspiracy to bribe MPs.
