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LS privileges panel formed; Ravi Shankar Prasad to head
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has formed the Privileges Committee, chaired by Ravi Shankar Prasad, to address breach of privilege complaints among lawmakers.
New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday constituted the House’s Privileges Committee for the 18th Lok Sabha, appointing BJP leader and former Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad as its chairman.
This is the first time members have been appointed to the panel in the 18th Lok Sabha.
The 15-member committee has eight MPs from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and seven from the Opposition. The panel deals with complaints of breach of privilege by lawmakers against officials as well as against fellow MPs. The committee comes into effect from Tuesday.
Apart from Prasad, the BJP members on the panel are Brijmohan Agrawal, Jagadish Shettar, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo, Jagdambika Pal and Trivendra Singh Rawat.
The Opposition members include Congress leaders Tariq Anwar, Manickam Tagore and Manish Tewari, DMK’s T.R. Baalu, Kalyan Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena MP Shrirang Appa Chandu Barne, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Ganpat Sawant and Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav.
However, Congress MP Manickam Tagore, named as a committee member, said he could not attend the meeting as he was suspended. “I am suspended. I can’t attend the Committee meeting,” Tagore posted on X.
Tagore is among eight Opposition MPs who were suspended for the remainder of the Budget session. The second phase of the session will begin on March 9 and conclude on April 2.
The committee has been formed amid frequent threats of breach of privilege notices exchanged between treasury and Opposition benches in recent sessions.
During the recent Budget session, the BJP had initially planned to move a breach of privilege notice against Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi over alleged misleading remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the plan was dropped at the time as the privileges committee had not yet been constituted.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey later moved a substantive motion against Gandhi, leading to disruptions in the House.
