The report of the Justice Achal Behari Shrivastava Commission inquiring into the violent clashes in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly on October 21, 1997, has acquired a special significance in the context of the recent unseemly happenings in the state legislatures in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Assam.In Andhra Pradesh, state Governor C. Rangarajan was mobbed and almost mauled by opposition legislators who would not allow him to proceed with the customary Governor's address. Automatic termination of the membership of erring legislators under special circumstances, as recommended by the Shrivastava Commission, might sound draconian. But at a time when law-makers cutting across party lines are behaving as if they are a law unto themselves, nothing short of drastic measures can restore the people's waning confidence in parliamentary democracy.The people look up to their elected representatives as their role models. And if the latter continue to behave outrageously, there is a danger that the peoplewill lose faith not only in their representatives but in the parliamentary system itself.That delinquent behaviour by legislators has become the rule rather than the exception was poignantly highlighted in the last session of the 11th Lok Sabha when an exasperated Speaker P.A. Sangma not only threatened to quit if the MPs did not behave but proclaimed that he was ashamed to be the Speaker of such a House. Unfortunately, neither Sangma's articulation of his anguish nor his efforts to draw up a code of ethics for elected representatives with the help of the leaders of various parties yielded any result. The recent happenings in the state assemblies demonstrate that the country's political class has become immune to such admonitions and appeals. Desperate remedies have therefore become necessary to tame the country's unruly law-makers. It is against this backdrop that there is an urgent need to publish the Shrivastava Commission report. This will, perhaps, facilitate a debate on the issue of maintainingparliamentary decorum.The political class appears determined to thwart any attempt to discipline the legislators because of an ill-conceived notion of the privileges of the legislature. When the UP police registered some criminal cases in connection with the bloody clashes in the Assembly after the 1993 elections, the then ruling SP-BSP combine raised a hue and cry over the executive transgressing the jurisdiction of the legislature. No action was taken when legislators resorted to violence in Gujarat during the debate on a confidence motion. Small wonder that the state assemblies in UP, Bihar and Haryana have, over the years, become boxing rings without pricking the conscience of the nation's political class. The Shrivastava Commission's recommendation that the legislators should themselves formulate strict rules to govern their conduct and provide for stringent punishment against those who violate these rules may prove useful. If politicians themselves can't decide how to tame their delinquent flock, thelaw must assert its supremacy and punish the guilty. And in the case of the law-makers, the punishment should be exemplary and deterrent.
