SC stays order of breach of privilege of MP Assembly

New Delhi, Nov 2 (UNI) The Supreme Court today stayed till further orders the breach of privilege of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly initiated by the State Assembly Speaker Ishwar Das Rohani against Lokayukt Madhya Pradesh Justice Ripushudan Dayal and four others.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran also issued notices to 11 respondents including Mr Rohani, secretaries of the Assembly Quazi Aqlimuddin, Bhagwan Dev Israni, deputy secretary of the Assembly G K Rajpal and five MLAs.

The MLAs are Archna Chitnis, Lavkesh Singh, Jalim Singh Patel, Saroj Bachchan Naik and Gajraj Singh.

The petitioner Mr Dayal, legal advisor to him Mrs Vibhawari Joshi, DIG (SPE) G P Singh, SP (SPE) Dr K K Lohani and SHO (SPE) S K Verma contended that they had not done anything which amounted to breach of privilege of the Assembly.

The trouble started when Mr Dayal initiated criminal proceedings against those involved in illegal contract for constructing a road connecting Assembly with Vallabh Bhawan at the cost of Rs 2 crore.

It was an anonymous complaint received on June 21, 2005 by Mr Dayal.

The contract was given without inviting tender by the supretending engineer of the Capital Project Administration.

The apex court directed the respondents to file their responses till November 20, the next date of hearing.

The petitioner prayed to the court to quashed the proceedings initiated by the Speaker against the petitioners who were working under statutory authority and fully authorised to conduct criminal investigation on a complaint received by them.

UNI