‘Expunging remarks is within the powers of the Speaker.’
‘Nobody can question or challenge the Speaker’s decision.’
IMAGE: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi speaks in the House on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, July 1, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo/Sansad TV
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar expunged certain remarks made by Rahul Gandhi, who is the newly-minted Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Mallikarjun Kharge, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House when the two leaders were speaking on the motion of thanks to President Droupadi Murmu’s speech.
Constitutional expert and former secretary general of te Lok Sabha P D T Achary discusses the rules under which such remarks can be expunged from the record during the proceedings of the two Houses of Parliament.
“If you want to raise an allegation against the minister then there is a particular procedure which has to be followed. If you don’t do that, the procedure will not allow you to go on record,” Achary tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
The Lok Sabha Speaker and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha expunged certain remarks made by the LoPs of both the Houses. Under which rule were these remarks expunged and what are the rules that govern such expungements?
Rule 380 (external pdf file) gives the power to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and Rule 261 (Page 91 of this pdf file) gives the same power to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha to expunge remarks made on the floor of the house if these remarks are derogatory, defamatory, indecent or un-Parliamentary.
Basically, use of un-Parliamentary or abusive language, making allegations without any proof, etc, are normally removed from the record of the proceedings of the House.
If you want to raise an allegation against the minister then there is a particular procedure which has to be followed. If you don’t do that, the procedure will not allow you to go on record.
Similarly, if you abuse a person then those abusive terms can also be removed from the record. There are so many un-Parliamentary expressions which have been compiled in a book by the secretariat of Parliament.
If a member uses any of those expressions then it will go off the record.
Then it also depends on the particular context and also the particular expression that has been used in the House by the member.
I’ll give one very interesting example of what I mean.
It was in the 1970s. Sardar Swaran Singh (the Congress’s four-time Lok Sabha MP from Jalandhar, also a Rajya Sabha MP who held foreign, railways and defence portfolios at different times), a Sikh, was speaking in the House.
When Swaran Singh was speaking, a member from the then Jan Sangh (the BJP’s political parent) Hukamchand (Munnalal) Kachwai stood up exactly at 12 o’clock and addressing the Speaker said, ‘Adhyaksh Mahoday, 12 baj gaye (Speaker Sir, it is 12 o’clock, time to start the Question Hour)’.
That statement by itself doesn’t mean anything. It is not a derogatory expression.
Since Sardar Swaran Singh was speaking when Kachwai made this expression, in that context it has a lot of meaning because that (12 baj gaye) is a pejorative expression (even though used figuratively by Kachwai) used against (to ridicule) the Sikhs.
It was not a proper way and there was no need for (Kachwai) to remind the Chair that it was 12 o’clock when the question hour ends and the zero hour begins.
There was no need for any member to stand up and say these words to remind the Speaker because the Speaker himself was watching the time.
Sardar Swaran Singh raised an objection to this statement being pejorative to the Sikhs and so the Speaker expunged that remark from the record. So, even if the words might sound very harmless, it is the context which makes it important.
What remedial measures are open to MPs whose speeches, or parts thereof, are expunged from the record?
Expunging remarks is within the powers of the Speaker. He has absolute discretion in this matter, that is, nobody can question or challenge the Speaker’s decision. Nobody can sit on judgement on such matters.
The MP, though, can make an appeal to the same Speaker or the Chairman and explain his position to make a case for getting her/his remark on the record.
If the Speaker is satisfied and so decides, then such remarks can be taken back on the record.
Otherwise it will remain off the record.
IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju accompany newly elected Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to the chair, June 26, 2024. Photograph: SansadTV/ANI Photo
In your opinion, was the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha justified in expunging the remarks of the Leaders of the Opposition in the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament?
I do not know what exactly was spoken by the Leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses.
Now, if the Opposition (leaders) has made an allegation against the prime minister (Narendra Modi) and the prime minister is very much there to reply to that (allegation) and that should end (have ended) the matter. So that need not be removed from the record.
But if it is about an outside person (if the MP against whom allegations are levelled is not present in the House), who is not in the House to defend himself, then that particular allegation or statement will not be retained on record.
Do such expungements violate the freedom to speech of an elected representative?
No.
Article 105 (external link) of the Constitution of India says that there should be freedom in the House subject to other provisions of the Constitution and the rules of procedure of the House.
