Tripura Speaker cautions Opposition members to follow rules

Agartala, Jun 25: Tripura Assembly Speaker Ramendra Chandra Nath today cautioned the Opposition members to follow rules in the House and maintain its decorum as they criticised yesterday's decision of the Speaker to suspend two Congress Legislators for the day.

Leader of the Opposition Ratan Lal Nath raised the issue today after the Question Hour and expressed concern over the attitude of the member of Treasury Bench, including the Speaker, towards Opposition members while alleging that government had not paid due attention to them.

''According to rules, the Speaker cannot suspend any member from the House unless it is mentioned by the Leader of the House (Chief Minister) but unfortunately, yesterday the Speaker disqualified two senior Legislators Gopal Roy and Sudip Roy Barman without any consent, which is gross violation of Assembly business rules,'' Mr Nath mentioned.

The Speaker pointed out that his decision over the conduct of business was always beyond question and illegal in nature and asked the members not to proceed further on it.

However, the Opposition leader referred a few unconstitutional comments had made by former Left Legislators and subsequent proceedings of the Speakers and alleged that the Speaker's attitude was dangerous to democracy and unhealthy to the constitutional set-up.

Yesterday, with the House witnessing uproarious scenes, the Speaker adjourned it three times before suspending Mr Roy Barman and Gopal Roy for the day.

The trouble started when Opposition Leader Ratan Lal Nath raised the issue immediately after Question Hour and demanded a judicial inquiry, dissolution of the Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE) and action against the officials.

When the TBSE announced the results of Higher Secondary examinations on June 10, Opposition parties organised an agitation across the Northeastern state protesting against what they termed as ''gross anomalies in the results.'' Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and School Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty told the House that the state government would take steps to prevent recurrence of such mistakes.

UNI