PARLIAMENTARY REPORT
JURISDICTION NAME INDIA TURMOIL IN INDIA PARLIAMENT
Demand for Minister’s resignation rejected The fifth Session of the Lok Sabha, the House of the People, commenced on 21 July and concluded on 13 August 2015. The Lok Sabha had a total of 17 sittings. The first sitting of the House was adjourned after paying respect to the memory of a member who had passed away during the inter-session period. A major part the Session was disrupted as the main opposition party kept on pressing its demand for the resignation of a Cabinet Minister.
As soon as the House met the next day on 22 July, the Speaker, Lok Sabha, Smt. Sumitra Mahajan informed the House that she had received notices of Adjournment Motion from several MPs and the matters, though important enough, did not warrant interruption of business of the day. She, therefore, disallowed the notices of Adjournment Motion. Many members belonging to the Indian National Congress (INC) came to the well of the House demanding the resignation of the Minister of External Affairs, Smt. Sushma Swaraj for her alleged role in facilitating the travel arrangement of an accused in the Indian Premier League (IPL) controversy. The members belonging to the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) also raised the demand for a separate High Court for Telengana. Due to interruptions, the House was adjourned for some time. When the House re-assembled at 12.00hrs., some members even
2015
displayed flags and placards inside the House. Taking a strong note of this, the Speaker, Lok Sabha, Smt. Mahajan made the following observation: “Maintaining of discipline and decorum in the House is of utmost importance for maintaining the credibility and dignity of Parliament. We have well settled norms of standards to be observed by Members which have been provided for in our Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business. These are also invariably brought to the notice of all the Hon. Members often through paras in Bulletin PartII. To name a few, Rule 349 provides the norms of etiquettes and standards of rules to be observed by the Members in the House. Rule 351 refers to the mode of addressing the House and Rule 352 provides rules to be observed by Members while speaking in the House. Further, as per Rule 350, only the Member called by the Speaker is entitled to speak while Rule 361 lays down the procedure when the Speaker rises. I have been drawing the attention of the Members to these provisions from time to time. I am, however, pained that none of the norms of etiquettes and standards are being observed by the Members. I have always provided adequate opportunity to all sections of the House to raise matters of topical interest provided the Members give proper notice and seek to raise these matters within the parameter of the rules and accepted norms of behaviour. I would also like to emphatically stress here that in the event of
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disorderly conducts, I would be constrained to initiate appropriate disciplinary action against the erring Members. I hope that all the Members would adhere to the set norms of etiquettes, standards of behaviour with regard to discipline and decorum in the House. I request all the Members who are displaying placards and other exhibits to immediately refrain from doing so.”
On 27 July, the Speaker observed that despite her repeated requests some members kept on displaying placards inside the House which also encroached upon the rights of other members. She said it was totally improper to display placards in front of the Speaker. The Speaker named a member, Shri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (INC), for having disregarded the authority of the Chair in abuse of the rules of the House by wilfully obstructing the business of the House. Thereafter, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal (BJP) moved a motion for suspension of Shri Chowdhury from the service of the House for the remainder of the Session. After submissions made by some members, the Speaker observed that Shri Chowdhury shall withdraw from the House only for the day. The motion was, thereafter, withdrawn by leave of the House. The Speaker convened a meeting of the leaders of parties on 30 July to end the deadlock. However, the stalemate persisted. On 3 August, the Speaker named 25 members following which
they stood automatically suspended from the service of the House for five consecutive sittings of the House under Rule 374A of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha.
On 6 August, the Minister of External Affairs, Smt. Sushma Swaraj, made a statement regarding her alleged role on the issue of a request made to the British Government for issuing travel document Lalit Modi, a former IPL chief. In her statement in Lok Sabha, Smt Sushma Swaraj forcefully refuted the allegation that she had made a request or recommendation to the British Government to grant travel documents to Lalit Modi. She quoted the reply given by the Ministry of Home Affairs of Britain in response to a request sent by an Indian Newspaper, which stated that “The UK Home Department ….claimed that travel documents issued to former IPL boss, Lalit Modi, to travel to Portugal to assist his ailing wife was determined in accordance with the appropriate rules.”
The Minister said the first sentence of the oral message she got sent was that “if the British Government chooses to give travel documents to Lalit Modi that will not spoil our bilateral relations.” If the British Government was in favour of issuing travel documents to Lalit Modi then it was purely their decision and she had no role in that process. The message was conveyed by her purely on the basis of humanitarian ground, because of the serious medical condition of the wife of Lalit Modi under
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