New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that legislators should be respectful even while dissenting, as it fixed for final hearing a plea challenging the expulsion of RJD leader Sunil Kumar Singh from the Bihar Legislative Council for his remarks against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh fixed January 9 for hearing the matter in detail, after it prima facie disapproved of the statements made by Singh on February 13, last year, during a heated exchange in the House.
“Legislators should be respectful even while dissenting,” the bench observed after senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader, said that freedom of speech inside the House has been given wide latitude.
Singhvi said that similar words were said by another legislator who was suspended, but in Singh’s case, he was expelled for saying only one word.
Hearing the matter on Monday, the bench told Singhvi, “This is how freedom of speech is used inside the House? You (Singhvi) are also a Member of Parliament. Do you subscribe to the use of such language against your opponents inside the House?”
Singhvi said he does not subscribe to such language, but expulsion for use of such language would make the opposition benches empty.
The bench then asked Singhvi to prepare for the final hearing of the matter and listed it for January 9, saying it won’t give half-an-hour for hearing of the petition.
On July 26, last year, Singh was expelled from the Bihar Legislative Council for unruly behaviour in the House.
The motion for Singh’s expulsion was passed by voice vote, a day after the ethics committee submitted its report to acting chairman Awadhesh Narain Singh.
Singh, considered close to RJD president Lalu Prasad and his family, was charged with raising slogans against Nitish Kumar on February 13 during a heated exchange in the House.
He was also charged with “insulting the chief minister by mimicking his body language” and, upon appearing before the committee, questioning the competence of its members.
In addition to Singh’s expulsion, another RJD MLC, Mohd Qari Sohaib, who also engaged in disruptive behaviour on the same day, was suspended for two days.
The ethics committee report said that while Sohaib had expressed regret for his actions during the inquiry, Singh remained defiant.
