Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Saturday said the attitude of the Delhi high court over the plea of jailed MP Suresh Kalmadi to attend proceedings of Lok Sabha were “not conducive to strengthening of parliamentary democracy”.
“While judicial proceedings are important, Parliament proceedings are also important. It is not conducive to the strengthening of parliamentary democracy”, he told PTI in the wake of the court’s observations in the case.
The court had observed that “there is no such important issue going to take place in Parliament that if you (Kalmadi) do not attend the session, then the government will fall”.
At the same time, Chatterjee, who has strong views on judicial activism, made it clear that “it is certainly for the judiciary to decide whether a case is made out or not dehors the right to attend Parliament.”
The legal definition of “dehors” is “outside or beyond the bounds of Chatterjee insisted that every Member of Parliament is representing a constituency. “The problems of the people may arise on Saturday, Sunday or the day after. Therefore, to apply what has happened in the past is not proper.”
Kalmadi, who is an accused in the alleged multi-crore scam in the Commonwealth Games projects, case has sought permission to attend the Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning on Monday. He was on Friday asked by the high court to produce his attendance record in Lok Sabha for the last five years.
“Show me the past attendance record in Parliament Sessions. What contribution he had during the sessions? What are the queries he had asked and what participation he wants now for which he has approached this court,” Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said, while asking Kalmadi to file a detailed affidavit on it on Monday.