Power of the House to punish its Members for unethical conduct or contempts
- Part 1 -

O Joy Singh *

“The man on the street, from all classes, is surprisingly ignorant of all Parliamentary procedure, and has never given it any serious consideration at all.”

What Bapuji Mahatma Gandhi advised us to avoid from Seven Sins were–politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity and worship without sacrifice. It is, however, distressing to notice that very soon after his demise, most of the people of India abandoned the noble ideas and the human values for which the Father of Nation had lived and died.

In the Parliamentary system of democracy, the House has the right to punish its members for their misconduct inside the House or outside it. In the cases of misconduct or improper conduct or unethical conduct or disorderly conduct or unbecoming behaviour of members and contempts committed by the members within the House or beyond its walls, the House can impose punishment in the form of admoni- tion, reprimand, withdrawal from the House, suspension from the service of the House, imprisonment and expulsion from the House.

Provisions to ensure good behaviour amongst Members have a long history but development has been piecemeal and has largely followed a pattern of reacting to perceived crisis. In the United Kingdom, for example, the House of Commons passed a resolution against offering bribes to Members in 1695.

Regarding the actions of Members to damage and disrepute the House of Commons, Erskine May in his Book, “The Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament” stated that Members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally.

Whereas, for maintaining the highest traditions in Parliamentary life, MN Kaul and SL Shakdher in their book, “Practice and Procedure of Parliament” stated that in order to maintain the highest traditions in Parliamentary life, members of Parliament are expected to observe a certain standard of conduct, both inside the House as well as outside it; and it is also stated that the behaviour of Members should be such as to enhance the dignity of Parliament and its members in general, and the conduct of members should not be contrary to the usage, or derogatory to the dignity of the House or in any way inconsistent with the standards which Parliament is entitled to expect of its members.

On June 27, 1947, when Indian Independence Act was piloted in the House of Commons, the then Leader of the Opposition, Sir Winston Churchill, opposing the Bill of Independence stated that the world’s one of the ancient civilisations would collapse because the Parliamentary system would not be sustainable; and, however, eleven years after that, another Prime Minister, Sir Antony Eden, while making comments on Indian Constitution observed that within three years of its Independence, the oldest civilisation of the world, India in its Constituent Assembly enacting the Constitution could prove its vitality because ‘it produced the magnificent magna carta of socio-economic transformation of a huge mass of backward people.’

Why it refers here is that in the Parliamentary system of democracy the subject on which the elected Members will deliberate is so sensitive and such sensitivity is to be kept in mind with the duties which they are going to perform, and the responsibilities which they are going to discharge are not very easy.

With regard to the expulsion of Members from the British House of Commons, Griffith and Ryle state that : “Expulsion is the ultimate sanction against a member. It is an outstanding demonstration of House’s power to regulate its own proceedings, even its composition. The expulsion of a member cannot be challenged. It may best be understood as a means available to the House to rid itself of those it finds unfit for membership, rather than as a punishment. Members have been expelled for perjury, fraud, corruption or “conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman”, only a few had offended against the House itself or committed a breach of privilege or contempt.”

There have been several instances of expulsion of Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly in India as well.

Since 1951, many Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) of Indian Union have lost their membership from their respective Houses for their misconduct or improper conduct or unethical conduct or unbecoming behaviour of members and contempts committed by the members inside and outside the House. The first Member of Parliament to have lost his Lok Sabha membership was HG Mudgal in 1951. Till then the first general election was not held in the country, there was a Provisional Parliament in the country, and Shri HG Mudgal was one of the Members of this Parliament.

In fact, Shri HG Mudgal was expelled from the Lok Sabha for receiving bribe from the Bombay Bullion Association in lieu of asking questions in the Parliament with effect from September 25, 1951. He had received a sum of money from Bullion Association to ask certain questions in the Parliament. When Mudgal was accused of this, a special Parliamentary inquiry Committee was first constituted. It was headed by Shri TT Krishnamachari as Chairman and other members were Professor KT Shah, Sarvashree Syed Nausherli, G Durgabai and Kashinathrao Vaidya.

The ad hoc Committee was constituted on June 8, 1951 by the Parliament to investigate the conduct and activities of HG Mudgal in connection with certain dealings with the Bombay Bullion Association, which included canvassing support and making propaganda in Parliament on problems such as option business and stamp duty and receipt of financial or business advantages from the Bullion Association; and to consider and report whether the conduct of HG Mudgal was derogatory to the dignity of the House and inconsistent with the standards that Parliament was entitled to expect from its members.

When the question of constitution of such Committee to inquire into the conduct of HG Mudgal, a member of the Provisional Parliament, was put up before the House, members expressed doubt as to the need for appointment of a special Committee to go into this question as there already was in existence a Committee of Privileges of the House.

In this regard, the then Speaker Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar, popularly known as Dadasaheb, observed: ‘(Even though) there is a Committee of Privileges constituted under the rules, yet it is within the powers of the House to constitute other special committees if there are any special circumstances and inquiries to be made. There is nothing inconsistent in that.

Moreover, it is a not question to be considered whether any such conduct as alleged is really in a sense a breach of privilege of the House or something different. A member may behave in a manner in which the House would not like him to behave and yet it may be argued that it is not a breach of privilege. In all such circumstances, the practice in the House of Commons has been to constitute a special committee and the procedure of making a motion is the procedure that is usually adopted in the House of Commons even though there is a Committee of Privileges.’

The said adhoc Parliamentary Committee thoroughly investigated this entire matter of HG Mudgal and after examining 24 witnesses submitted a 387- pages report in this matter in August 1951, which was presented before the Parliament. The Committee found out that Mudgal had contacts with the Bombay Bullion Association. After receiving a bribe from this Association, he asked many questions in favor of the Association in such a way that Bullion Association might benefit from it, and the obstacles coming in the way of his business could be removed.

Therefore, it is evident that Mudgal has lowered the dignity of a Member of Parliament and has acted against the ethics of the House and the Parliamentary inquiry committee found him guilty. Thereafter, following by a motion in the House moved by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru which was adopted by the House after a debate, in which Mudgal had participated, HG Mudgal resigned prior to the voting on the motion seeking his removal from the House, but the House resolved that he deserved expulsion with effect from September 25, 1951 and that the terms of his resignation constituted contempt of the House, aggravating his offence.

Our first Prime Minister Late Jawaharlal Nehru defended the action against HG Mudgal, saying that “if the House does not express its will in such matters in clear, unambiguous and forceful terms, then doubts may very well arise in public mind as to whether the House is very definite about such matters or not”.

To be continued....