Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and six Congress leaders were accused of bribing Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs to defeat no-trust motion
GUWAHATI: The Supreme Court on March 4 overturned its own 1998 ruling giving immunity to legislators from prosecution for accepting bribes for making speeches or voting in a particular way in Parliament and state legislatures.
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In its verdict, the apex court said, “The judgment of the majority in Narasimha Rao (case) which grants immunity to legislators has a grave danger and thus overruled.”
In the Narasimha Rao v State ( aka JMM bribery case), a five-judge bench had held that legislators enjoyed immunity from criminal prosecution for bribery in matters connected to their speech and votes in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies as per Article 105(2) — which deals with the powers, privileges, of the Houses of Parliament — and Article 194(2) of the Constitution that says no parliamentarian can be liable to “any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in the Legislature”.
JMM Bribery Case
The genesis of the JMM bribery case lay in the non-confidence motion moved against the minority P V Narasimha Rao-led Congress government that was formed after the 1991 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress had emerged as the single-largest party, but falling way short of the majority mark.
In July 1993, the Opposition moved a non-confidence motion on the back of economic instability and the changing political scenario following the demolition of Babri masjid in December, 1991.
In the then Lok Sabha of 528 members the Congress had 251 falling short by 13 for a simple majority. However, the motion was defeated by 14 votes, with 251 votes in favour and 265 against.
Bribery Charge Against Rao, Others
Almost three years after the non-confidence motion, Ravindra Kumar of the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha filed a complaint on February 1, 1996, with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), accusing Rao and his party colleagues -- Satish Sharma, Ajit Singh, Bhajan Lal, V C Shukla, R K Dhawan and Lalit Suri -- of hatching a criminal conspiracy in July 1993 “to prove a majority of the government on the floor of the House on July 28, 1993, by bribing Members of Parliament of different political parties, individuals and groups of an amount of over Rs 3 crore and that in furtherance of the said criminal conspiracy a sum of Rs 1.10 crore was handed over by the aforementioned persons” to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MP Suraj Mandal.
The CBI registered cases against four of the JMM’s six MPs -- Mandal, Shibu Soren, Simon Marandi, and Shailendra Mahto.
Supreme Court Verdict
The Supreme Court’s judgement cited the CBI investigation, which said the JMM leaders “accepted illegal gratification to vote against the Motion and, because of their votes and some other votes, the Government led by A-1 (Rao) survived”.
Justice P Bharucha held: “… no member (of Parliament) is answerable in a court of law or any similar tribunal for what he has said in Parliament. This again is recognition of the fact that a member needs the freedom to say what he thinks is right in Parliament undeterred by the fear of being proceeded against. A vote, whether cast by voice or gesture or the aid of a machine, is treated as an extension of speech or a substitute for speech and is given the protection that the spoken word has.”
He added, “We are acutely conscious of the seriousness of the offence that the alleged bribe taker is said to have committed. If true, they bartered a most solemn trust committed to them by those they represented. By reason of the lucre that they received, they enabled a Government to survive. Even so, they are entitled to the protection that the Constitution plainly affords them. Our sense of indignation should not lead us to construe the Constitution narrowly, impairing the guarantee to effective Parliamentary participation and debate.”
