Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the Opposition Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) welcomed the Supreme Court’s judgment that members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies do not enjoy immunity from prosecution for taking bribes to make speeches or to cast votes in the legislature.
A seven-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud unanimously overruled the 1998 verdict delivered by a five-judge Bench in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) bribery case by which MPs and MLAs were granted immunity from prosecution for taking bribe to make a speech or vote in the legislature.
Minutes after the judgment was delivered, Mr. Modi posted on X (formerly Twitter): “SWAGATAM! [welcome] A great judgment by the Hon’ble Supreme Court which will ensure clean politics and deepen people’s faith in the system.”
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi also welcomed the judgment, stating that this had been “a long-pending issue for many years to correct a purely legal issue,” which cannot be the law on the text of the Constitution.
“It is a salutary, desirable, welcome judgement. It is something which sets right the law and it should have been done earlier. It is a legal issue decided on the assumption that some people did not so vote and some people did vote on the allegation of bribery and whether they can at all be prosecuted, not whether they are convictable or not, on the merits,” said Mr. Singhvi.
“These provisions of protection to Members of Parliament or an MLA are made for the discharge of their duties and only for those things without which they cannot discharge their duties, and not to give them additional benefits like, for example, receiving bribe,” he added in a video message.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury termed the judgment “historic” and also connected it to horse trading and toppling of governments through pecuniary appeals to legislators. He posted on X: “A historic 7 Judge Constitution bench judgement. Mega horse trading allegedly through bribery indulged by the BJP has toppled many democratically elected governments replaced by BJP govts! Likewise, some BJP RS (Rajya Sabha) MPs have been elected in this manner. The judgement must be followed up by action.”
