Three high-profile MPs — Natwar Singh, Kuldeep Bishnoi and Beni Prasad Verma — seem to be in for serious trouble with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee disqualifying three Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) members for defection, citing newspaper reports. Sources disclosed that Congress chief whip in the Rajya Sabha V Narayanasamy has petitioned House Chairman Mohammad Hamid Ansari for the disqualification of former Minister for External Affairs Natwar Singh. Congress chief whip in the Lok Sabha Madhusudan Mistry has filed a petition before Chatterjee seeking disqualification of Bishnoi, son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal. Both Singh and Bishnoi are under suspension from the Congress for pursuing anti-party activities. The complaint against Verma has been made by the Samajwadi Party (SP).Singh, who had to resign from the Manmohan Singh Government in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal, has been since hobnobbing with the SP. The case of Bishnoi is far more serious. He floated a regional party, Haryana Janhit Congress (BL), at a rally in Rohtak on December 2 last year. He also unveiled the “rising sun” as his party’s symbol. Bishnoi publicly vowed to quit the Lok Sabha, but only after six months. Verma was working at tandem with the Congress after breaking it off with SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Singh is a member of the Upper House and therefore, his case would be handled by Ansari. As far as Bishnoi and Verma are concerned, the petitions against them would be adjudicated by the same Speaker who has unseated three people.The speculation about the fate of the three leaders started after Chatterjee acted against Bhalchand Yadav (Khalilabad), Ramakant Yadav (Azamgarh) and Mohammad Shahid Akhlaq (Meerut), following petitions by BSP leader in the House, Rajesh Verma. The Speaker held that they had incurred disqualification on account of their “voluntarily” giving up the membership of the BSP. The Speaker upheld the contention of the petitioner, who had produced the clippings from a dozen newspapers and a video clip in one case to prove that certain speeches and utterances were made by the respondents, after their suspension from the BSP, against the party and in favour of the SP. This amounted to their voluntarily giving up BSP’s membership.The Speaker pointed out that newspapers had reported with near uniformity the utterances and speeches of the three respondents against the BSP and its leader, Mayawati, and in favour of the SP. There was a lack of any plausible explanation from the respondents to the question why all newspapers would report on the same day if the incident had not happened. He took note of the fact that the respondents did not issue any rejoinder either.The Speaker quoted from Supreme Court judgments and provided a new dimension to the debate over the admissibility of media reports as evidence when he observed: “In a democracy like ours, the press plays a very vital role, especially in disseminating information regarding different political parties and persons in public life, as the MPs are. In our country, there is complete freedom of press and in matters of political events, it is expected that reports about political events would be factual. Ordinarily, in my view, in a democratic set-up like ours, the newspaper reports — though not strictly proved as per the law of evidence — can be taken as providing reliable evidence, unless proved otherwise.”
