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Laloo condemns order

By K. Balchand

PATNA NOV. 8. The Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker's action ordering the arrests of journalists was widely condemned today by a cross-section of the people in Bihar and they demanded its immediate revocation.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, Laloo Prasad Yadav, now in Puri, telephonically told The Hindu that it was wrong on the part of the Speaker to order the arrest of such senior and respectable personalities of the stature of the Publisher, S. Rangarajan, the Editor, N. Ravi, the Executive Editor, Malini Parthasarathy, of the paper and S. Selvam of Murasoli.

He said the press as the fourth estate had a role to play along with the executive, the legislature and the judiciary in strengthening democracy and any matter of dispute had to be sorted out amicably. Confrontation should be avoided.

Freedom of the press was of paramount importance and none should obstruct the fundamentals associated with the functioning of the democracy. The Speaker should have exercised tolerance.

The Deputy Speaker of the Bihar Assembly, Bhola Prasad Singh, said the ruling was not a good example for democracy. The whole thing could have been done in a different way "without chopping the tongue of journalists".

Ghulam Sarwar, Agriculture Minister and former journalist, said the freedom of the press had to be recognised.

The Excise Minister and RJD spokesman, Shivanand Tiwari, said the Speaker had crossed all limits. He hoped the Government and the Speaker would withdraw the order immediately.

Constitutional expert and senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Basudeva Prasad, described the action as illegal and unconstitutional. Criticism of the Chief Minister did not amount to breach of privilege of the House. Parliament and the Speaker could not create a court of law under the Constitution by constituting a privileges committee to punish a person who might be said to have caused a libel of the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister.

Mr. Prasad quoted the 1965 SC AIR, where the judges ruled that the liberty guaranteed under Article 21 prevailed over the breach of privilege of any House. He added that according to parliamentary practice, no MP could claim breach of privilege for any indictment.

The Patna High Court Bar Association president, Basant Kumar Chaudhary, regretted that the privileges of the legislature were still not codified. They need to be codified much like in the case of contempt of court.

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