Bengal Speaker slaps heavy fine on Trinamool members

Kolkata, Apr 2 (UNI) In a rare ruling, West Bengal Assembly Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim today asked 29 Trinamool Congress members to either pay damages or face deduction of a substantial amount from their daily allowances for the furniture, vandalised on November 30 last year.

Exactly four months after the incident, the Speaker said according to an assessment of the Public Works Department, the "real value" of the furniture, damaged by the Trinamool Congress members in the Assembly lobby, was Rs 397,416.

Except Mr Tarak Banerjee, who was not present on the day, all other 29 members of the Trinamool Congress would have to pay Rs 13,704 each, failing which the amount would be deducted from them, he said.

The daily allowances of the Trinamool Congress members remained witheld since December last year following an order of the Speaker, after they broke and damaged valuable Assembly furniture in the presence of party chief Mamata Banerjee in the lobby.

The rampage took place after Ms Banerjee alleged that she had been assaulted and packed off by police on her way to Singur, the site for the Tatas' small car project.

Later, talking to reporters, the Speaker said the damaged furniture had antique value which the PWD could not assess. "It is unfortunate that the PWD could not assess the antique value through the help of any institution like the Income Tax department. It is on the basis of the real value of the damaged property that I gave the ruling without further delaying the issue," he said.

Describing Mr Halim's ruling as a sign of his "autocratic behaviour", Leader of Opposition Partha Chatterjee said in his chamber that they would not pay the damages.

"The Speaker is acting at the behest of the CPI(M) and he is out to murder democracy," he said.

UNI