New Delhi, April 28: The BJP on Tuesday gave a breach of privilege notice in Lok Sabha against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his statement made on Monday, outside the House, rejecting the demand for a JPC into the phone-tapping controversy.
Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj argued that the Prime Minister’s statement, made outside the House, amounted to “contempt of the House” and that she had expected an answer in the House, since she had made a demand for JPC in the House. “Parliament session is on. The JPC issue was raised in the House, and the PM should have, therefore, given his response in the House,” she told a group of reporters later in the day, doing a recap of the events in the House in the morning session.
After Swaraj’s statement, a notice signed by a group of 50 BJP MPs the list of signatories included senior MPs like Gopinath Munde, Ananth Kumar, Yashwant Sinha and Shahnawaz Hussain was given to Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary.
The CPM also lashed out at the PM. Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said “it is very wrong that such an announcement was made outside Parliament when the House is in session. We too are of the view that it was a fit case for breach of privilege”. He added: “We will consider the matter tomorrow. Today our focus is on moving the cut motions against the government’s failure to check price rise.”
Yechury pointed out that the demands for JPC probes were made by the Opposition and it should have been answered on the floor of the House. He said only a JPC could conduct a holistic probe into the IPL mess as separate inquiries by the Income Tax, CBDT, Enforcement Directorate and the BCCI would serve a partial purpose. The CPM, however, didn’t demand a JPC inquiry into phone-tapping issue and reiterated that intelligence agencies should be put under a system of parliamentary oversight.
A senior BJP leader said that after the notice is admitted by the Lok Sabha Speaker, it would be sent to Rajya Sabha Chairman, who would then forward it to the Privileges Committee of the Upper House. Prime Minister Singh is a member of Rajya Sabha, and hence any such motion can only be taken up by the Rajya Sabha’s Committee. Yashwant Sinha had given a privilege notice against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Rajya Sabha for some of his observations on the nuclear deal, in December 2007.
—-Agencies