Friday, Apr 08, 2005
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India & World
By P. S. Suryanarayana
SINGAPORE, APRIL 7. The Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, today decided, "on principle", against travelling to Australia at this time. Mr. Chatterjee, currently leading the Indian parliamentary delegation to the ongoing Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Manila, was scheduled to go to Sydney to participate in a mid-year meeting of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. The meeting is slated for April 10 to 15. Mr. Chatterjee took the decision on learning that the Australian authorities would subject him to a rigorous security check that betrayed a lack of trust in a key constitutional functionary of the world's largest democracy. Outlining the principles that governed his decision, Mr. Chatterjee told The Hindu over the phone from Manila that the Australian move was "an affront to India". Objecting to the likelihood of an "indiscriminate" imposition of security checks on him should he travel to Sydney for the conference, Mr. Chatterjee emphasised that India, in significant contrast, had provided "full exemption" from security screenings to not only the heads of state or government but also the parliamentary speakers of all countries. Mr. Chatterjee said "It will be a sad day" if the Speaker of the Lok Sabha were "not trusted" while arriving in another country for an international event. "Unless we respect each other, what is the good of these organisations", he said, adding that he was informed that the Australian authorities were not willing to relent.
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