Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar has asked the committee of privileges to investigate the alleged breach of privilege by 12 opposition lawmakers for “repeatedly entering the well of the Council, shouting slogans and persistently and wilfully obstructing the proceedings of the Council”.
According to the Rajya Sabha bulletin, nine of these 12 MPs are from the Congress and three from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Names of the Congress MPs mentioned in the reference are Shaktisinh Gohil, Naranbhai J Rathwa, Syed Nasir Hussain, Kumar Ketkar, Imran Prattapgarhi, L Hanumanthaiah, Phulo Devi Netam, Jebi Mather Hisham and Ranjeet Ranjan. The AAP members are Sanjay Singh, Sushil Kumar Gupta and Sandeep Kumar Pathak.
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In a separate notice, the Rajya Sabha secretariat said the committee has been asked to investigate breach of privilege against Singh for repeatedly submitting identical notices under Rule 267.
“Members are informed that the chairman, Rajya Sabha, has referred a question of alleged breach of privilege arising out of non-adherence to the directions of the Chair vis-a-vis repeated submission of identical notices under rule 267 by Shri Sanjay Singh, member, Rajya Sabha, under rule 203 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) to the committee of privileges for examination, investigation and report,” the bulletin said.
Rule 267 allows the suspension of listed business to take up an issue raised by any member with the Chair’s permission.
The committee has also been asked to investigate the allegation of breach of privilege against Congress MP Rajni Patil, who has been suspended for the duration of the Budget session that will resume in March. Patil was suspended on February 10 for recording the proceedings of the House, which were later shared on social media platforms. The disciplinary action was recommended by Dhankhar following a complaint by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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The first half of the Budget session that ended on February 13 was marked by disruptions as the opposition MPs demanded a discussion on the Hindenburg report alleging financial irregularities by the Adani Group that led to a hammering of the conglomerate’s stocks.
According to an official aware of the matter, “Some members made complaints that frequent disruptions by some MPs was breach of their privilege.” As members cannot directly make complaints to privilege committee, so the matter came before the Chair, who as per rule, referred it to Privilege Committee to examine, investigate & report,” the official said.