New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey’s controversial remarks against the Congress and news portal NewsClick stirred a hornet’s nest in Parliament earlier this week, with the Opposition protesting the Lok Sabha Speaker’s move of restoring his expunged words.
‘Expunction’ is the act of removing or deleting words that are considered inappropriate from Parliament’s official records.
In his speech Monday, Dubey, an MP from Godda in Jharkhand, cited a report in the New York Times to claim that the news portal had received a funding of Rs 38 crore. The money, he claimed, was used to create an anti-India environment.
Amid opposition uproar, the BJP member further alleged, “…between 2005 and 2014, the Chinese government has paid money to Congress… Congress wants to divide India”.
The Congress called the remarks baseless and libelous, and objected when the remarks — which were expunged Monday — were restored on record later.
Although an expunged record circulated by the Lok Sabha Secretariat had removed names of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and others, and a reference to ‘Chinese government’, the names were restored in the record uploaded on the Lok Sabha’s website.
In its response, Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury accused Dubey of making baseless allegations against his party in the House and also decried the restoration of expunged remarks.
“We met the Speaker, and also wrote a letter to him. Our complaint was taken in note and the records were expunged. We thought objectionable remarks had been removed. Surprisingly, in the night we noticed that all the remarks that we protested against were restored in the records. Something like this has never happened before,” Chowdhury was quoted as saying.
This, he said, was against the rules and traditions of Parliament and is “a threat to Indian democracy”.
The controversy brought to the fore the procedure of expunction in Parliament. Here’s everything about what it is, what India’s parliamentary procedure says, and what the laws in other countries say.
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What remarks can be expunged
Members of the Parliament are expected to use “parliamentary language” during parliamentary debates. So when they fail to do so, their remarks can be “expunged” or removed from the record of the House.
Rule 352 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha mandates what members can and cannot say while addressing the House. For instance, parliamentarians cannot refer to facts that are sub-judice, use “offensive expressions about the conduct or proceedings of Parliament or any State Legislature”, or “utter treasonable, seditious or defamatory words”.
Rule 380 empowers the Lok Sabha Speaker to order expunction of words that, in his opinion, are “defamatory or indecent or unparliamentary or undignified”. For instance, in July 2019, Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Azam Khan’s “sexist remark” against BJP MP Rama Devi while she was presiding over the House was expunged. Khan made the remark while speaking during a debate on the triple talaq law.
In another instance, in 2015, then Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan expunged Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member Bhagwant Mann’s comment against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a debate on a farmer’s death at a rally in Delhi. Mann had taken a dig at Modi’s radio show ‘Mann ki Baat’ while demanding better policies and schemes for farmers.
According to parliamentary procedure, the secretary-general needs to prepare a full report of the proceedings of the House at each of its sittings, and also needs to publish it as soon as practicable.
Rule 381 says that the portion of the proceedings that have been expunged need to be marked by asterisks and an explanatory footnote has to be inserted in the proceedings saying: ‘Expunged as ordered by the Chair’.
What happens when remarks are expunged
According to Lok Sabha Secretariat’s ‘Practice and Procedure of Parliament’, intimation of the expunction is given to the press, which is expected to take note of it.
Non-receipt of such intimation does not protect the media from the consequences of publishing the expunged or non-recorded words.
The Supreme Court has explained that the effect of expunging a portion of a member’s speech is as if that portion had not been spoken. According to the court, the publication of expunged words or expressions could prima facie be considered a breach of privilege of the House.
The court observed: “The effect in law of the order of the Speaker to expunge a portion of the speech of a member may be as if that portion had not been spoken. A report of the whole speech in such circumstances, though factually correct, may, in law, be rewarded as perverted and unfaithful report, and the publication of such a perverted and unfaithful report of a speech, i.e., including the expunged portion in derogation to the orders of the Speaker passed in the House may, prima facie, be regarded as constituting a breach of the privilege of the House arising out of the publication of the offending news item.”
Articles 105 and 194 of the Constitution provide for certain powers and privileges of the Houses of Parliament and the Houses of Legislatures and their members.
For instance, both provisions say that no member of Parliament or State legislatures “shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him” in Parliament or Legislature or any of their committees.
So can expunged words be restored on record, like it was done in Dubey’s case? It’s uncommon, but not unprecedented.
According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat publication, ordinarily, there is no review regarding words already expunged and that “requests from members for restoration of expunged words or to raise the question of expunction in the House have generally been turned down”.
However, it adds: “There have been rare cases where the Speaker on re-consideration has agreed to restore some words expunged from the proceedings of a previous day. The decision of the person presiding regarding expunction of any words is final and no appeal lies to the Speaker.”
What other countries do
Similar powers are available in a few other countries. For instance, the practices and procedures followed in the New South Wales Legislative Council — the Upper House of Parliament of the Australian state of New South Wales — lists the occasions on which some words were expunged from Hansard records, an official record of debates in the Legislative Council.
The document says that the “increased accessibility of Hansard online has led to occasional requests for material to be expunged from the Hansard record”.
Such a step, it says, is “undesirable”. “The Hansard record should as closely as possible record debates in the House,” the rules say. “However, there have been three occasions, involving the naming of minors in the House, where the House has agreed to expunge words from the Hansard record. On the third occasion in 2005, the words were removed from the electronic record only.”
The rules allows a Legislative Council committee to expunge or redact a portion of evidence from the transcript of a hearing, although calling it “highly unusual” at the same time.
These committees usually comprise between six and eight members of the Council drawn from various political parties, and are appointed to conduct inquiries on its behalf into policy issues, proposed legislation or executive activity.
The committees operate under the authority of the Council and are afforded all the immunities, rights and powers that the House enjoys.
Likewise, New Zealand’s parliamentary practice dictates that if the Speaker considers an expression to be unparliamentary, the usual course of action is to direct the member to withdraw it. But the rules also clarify that a comment that is withdrawn is not necessarily expunged from the record and can be reported by the news media.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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