Speaker flays SC order on Jharkhand

SC advanced the trial of strength in Jharkhand House, which was strongly objected to by Somnath Chatterjee.

Unfazed by the current controversy, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Sunday stuck to his guns that one of the "basic features" of the country's governance has been "violated" by the interim order of the Supreme Court in the Jharkhand case.

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He warned that if the issues were not reconsidered, this would upset the constitutional balance and the democratic functioning.

"The issues, arising out of the interim order of the case, are of such far-reaching ambit that if not reconsidered and if followed in future, it will upset the constitutional balance and the democratic functioning of the state as a whole," Chatterjee said.

He was inaugurating the 'Emergent Conference of Presiding Officers of Legislative Bodies in India' being held in the backdrop of the Jharkhand crisis, when the Supreme Court advanced the trial of strength and directed videography of the proceedings, which was strongly objected to by the Lok Sabha Speaker.

The Conference was boycotted by Presiding Officers of states ruled by BJP-led NDA, a development on which Chatterjee declined to comment. BJP was not in favour of such a conference and had left it to the wisdom of speakers.

Speaker K Kalimuthu of Tamil Nadu Assembly also did not attend the Conference.