Privileges and Powers of Members of Parliament (MPs)
The Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha has objected to the deletion of parts of his speech. Citing Article-105 of the Constitution, he argued that MPs have freedom of speech and speech.
- Article-105 deals with the powers, privileges etc. of the Houses of the Parliament and its members and committees.
- These powers and privileges are necessary to secure independence and effectiveness in the discharge of their functions.
- Without these privileges, the House can neither maintain its authority, dignity and respect, nor protect its members from interference in the discharge of their parliamentary responsibilities.
Parliamentary privileges can be classified into two broad categories:
- The privileges of the first class are available to each house collectively, while the members of the second class are individually available to the members of the house.
- The Parliament has not enacted any specific law to comprehensively codify all the privileges.
- These privileges are also extended to those persons who participate and speak in any committee of the Parliament. These include the Attorney General of India and Union Ministers.
- However, parliamentary privileges are not available to the President.
- The Supreme Court in the cases of Tej Kiran Jain v. N. Sanjeeva Reddy (1970), and P V Narasimha Rao v. State (1998) gave a wide scope to the protection provided under Article 105.
Source – Indian Express
