The Supreme Court pronounced its verdict right this moment ( March 4) on whether or not MPs and MLAs take pleasure in immunity from prosecution for taking bribe to make a speech or forged a vote in legislature. A seven-judge structure bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud gave the decision, saying that an MP or MLA cannot claim immunity from prosecution on a cost of bribery in reference to the vote/speech within the Parliament/ Legislative Assembly.
Supreme Court’s seven-judge bench in its unanimous view overruled the 1998 PV Narasimha Roa judgment case which granted immunity to MPs/MLAs from prosecution to bribery for voting in Parliament.
The bench stated they disagreed with the judgment in PV Narasimha and the judgment in PV Narasimha which grants immunity to legislators for allegedly bribery for casting a vote or speech has “wide ramifications and overruled”.
The high courtroom had reserved its judgement on October 5, 2023. During the arguments, the Centre had submitted that bribery can by no means be a subject of immunity and a parliamentary privilege just isn’t meant to position a lawmaker above legislation.
A bunch of attorneys together with the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, and amicus curiae PS Patwalia, who was helping the courtroom within the matter argued the matter for 2 days earlier than the courtroom reserved the order.
The seven-judge bench is reconsidering the judgement delivered by a five-judge bench of the apex courtroom in 1998 within the JMM bribery case by which MPs and MLAs have been granted immunity from prosecution for taking bribes to make a speech or vote in legislature.
The apex courtroom revisited the judgement 25 years after the JMM bribery scandal rocked the nation.
The high courtroom, in the middle of the listening to, stated it would study whether or not the immunity granted to lawmakers from prosecution for taking bribes to make a speech or vote in Parliament and state legislatures extends to them even when criminality is connected to their actions.
In 1998, a five-judge structure bench had, in its majority verdict delivered within the PV Narasimha Rao versus CBI case, held that parliamentarians have immunity in opposition to felony prosecution for any speech made and vote forged contained in the House beneath Article 105(2) and Article 194(2) of the Constitution.
The difficulty got here beneath the Supreme Court’s lens once more in 2019, when a bench headed by then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was listening to an enchantment filed by Sita Soren, JMM MLA from Jama and daughter-in-law of occasion chief Shibu Soren, who was an accused within the JMM bribery scandal.
The Justice Gogoi-led bench had referred to a five-judge bench the essential query, noting it had “wide ramification” and was of “substantial public importance”.
Sita Soren was accused of taking bribes to vote for a specific candidate within the Rajya Sabha election in 2012. She had contended that the constitutional provision granting lawmakers immunity from prosecution, which noticed her father-in-law being let off the hook within the JMM bribery scandal, be utilized to her.
She had moved the apex courtroom in opposition to the Jharkhand High Court order of February 17, 2014 refusing to quash the felony case lodged in opposition to her.
The three-judge bench had then stated it would revisit the SC verdict within the sensational JMM bribery case involving Shibu Soren, a former Jharkhand chief minister and ex-union minister, and 4 different occasion MPs who had accepted bribes to vote in opposition to the no-confidence movement threatening the survival of the P V Narasimha Rao authorities in 1993.
The Narasimha Rao authorities, which was in a minority, survived the no-confidence vote with their help.
The CBI registered a case in opposition to Soren and 4 different JMM Lok Sabha MPs however the Supreme Court quashed it citing immunity from prosecution they loved beneath Article 105(2) of the Constitution.
(With PTI inputs)
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