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Synopsis

The Supreme Court on Wednesday referred the judgement in PV Narasimha Rao vs. State, which held that a lawmaker was immune to prosecution even if he/she took money to vote on the floor of the House, to a seven-judge bench.

A bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud along with Justices AS Bopanna, MM Sundresh, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra heard the arguments made by both the side over reference of this issue to a larger bench.

The present case relates to a plea was filed by Sita Soren, a member of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, who was accused of accepting bribe for voting in favour of a particular candidate in the 2012 Rajya Sabha Elections. 

Soren filed a petition before the Jharkhand High Court stating that she enjoyed immunity under Article 194(2) of the Constitution, 1950, as per which 'no member of the Legislature of a State shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in the Legislature'.

While the High Court had dismissed her petition, she approached the top court in appeal.

Senior Advocate Raju Ramachandran, appearing for Soren, argued that the petition was a regular criminal appeal which only involved the question of the application of PV Narasimha Rao.

Top Court was further told that neither side had questioned the 1998 judgement.

Attorney General for India R Venkataramani also stated that there was no need for reference to a larger bench as the present case did not require checking correctness of PV Narasimha Rao judgment.

However, amicus curiae and Senior Advocate PS Patwalia,  there was no clear concurrence on the issue of immunity via the said judgment.

Yesterday, an impleadment application has been filed before the Supreme Court of India by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay in the instant matter seeking to assist the Constitution Bench.

"Corruption cases against influential persons are difficult to conclude due to complexity in prolonged legal procedures in aggregation with their money, political, bureaucratic powers. And if they are at all convicted, punishment/temporary monetary losses have no impact whatsoever on their social, financial & political life", the application adds.

Upadhyay has further submitted that Corruption undermines democracy and rule of law, and leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes quality of life and allows organized crime like separatism terrorism, naxalism, radicalism, gambling, smuggling, kidnapping, money laundering and extortion and other threats to human security to flourish.

Earlier this month, Supreme Court of India had set up a five-judge Constitution Bench to hear the matter involving the immunity for MPs and MLAs from being prosecuted for bribery charges.

Case Title: Sita Soren vs. Union of India