With the exception of BJP and Samata Party, the Lok Sabha yesterday expressed grave concern at the Patna High Court overstepping its limits in observing that Bihar was a fit case for imposition of Presidents rule.
Members expressed their support by loud thumping of the desk when former Prime Minister Chandrashekher demanded a strong admonition of the High Court from the Lok Sabha Speaker. He also appealed to the Chief Justice of India to retrain the judicial authorities from overstepping their limits.
Those who commit crimes were bound to perish. But when in the name of justice, those in power start overstepping their limits, then it poses the danger of loss of democracy and rise of authoritarianism, Chandrashekher said.
In this respect, the former Prime Minister also took strong objection to some members using the Parliament to demand the arrest of one person or the other. It is not our work to arrest or order arrest of someone.
It is the job of the police. If anything, our job is to see to it that the rights of a person being arrested is respected, he said.
The Parliament can not function as one or the other arm of the executive, he said.
Somnath Chatterjee of CPI(M) supported the observations of Chandrashekher and referred to an article by the Chief Justice of India in which he had called for greater role of the judiciary in what he had observed as situation when the executive and legislative had weakened considerably.
There were angry exchanges between Priya Ranjan Das Munshi of Congress and Nitish Kumar of Samata Party. While Nitish had already spoken, he was continuously interrupting Das Munshi. The problem began when Nitish Kumar made a moral comment on Das Munshi.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Nitish Kumar said that the courts observation reflected the existing law and order situation in Bihar and the Parliament could not ignore it.
He complained that in the guise of an inquiry into CBI officials seeking army assistance to execute the arrest warrant against Laloo Prasad Yadav, an attempt was being made to remove these officials from the fodder scam probe.
Priya Ranjan Das Munsi strongly objected to the CBI approaching the Army for help in arresting Laloo Prasad. He also referred to reports that there was no court orders to CBI to call the Army. He expressed surprise that CBI officials should be ignorant of basic principals of the constitution as to who was the competent authority to call in the Army and for what purpose.
Das Munshi was supported by Chandra Shekher who said only in the cases of treason one could even think of the necessity of a mid-night arrest of a public figure. He said heavens would not have fallen if the CBI had waited for Laloo Prasad to surrender the next day as promised by him in court.
Das Munshi said that neither a High Court could direct imposition of Presidents Rule in a State nor the supreme court ask the Prime Minister to resign. If we approve of this, then we are surrendering our rights, he said, adding CBI should not have directly approached the Army.
Jaswant Singh of BJP was of the view that the two issues the CBI seeking Armys assistance and the High Courts remarks were sought to be mixed and pleaded with the Members not to create a situation which could lead to a confrontation between the legislature and the judiciary.
He said the Government should react to the courts observation and should refrain from taking any measure, even inadvertently, that could thwart investigations into the scam.
But other members felt that government did the right thing by ignoring the High Courts remarks.
He suggested that a full-fledged discussion should be held on role of judiciary vis-
