Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated May 13, 1956: Parliament reports

The Rajya Sabha on May 11 unanimously passed the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Bill 1956. The Bill now goes to the President for assent. The Bill, sponsored in the Lok Sabha by Mr. Feroze Gandhi, was piloted in the Rajya Sabha by Dr. P. Subbaroyan, and is the third non-official Bill to be placed on the statute book by the present Parliament. When the Bill becomes law, no newspaper, including a news agency or a broadcasting station, will be liable in any court for civil or criminal proceedings for publication of a substantially true report of the proceedings of either House of Parliament. The protection is, however, qualified and will be available only if the proceedings published are for public good and if it be not proved that it was made with malice. The debate in the Rajya Sabha largely centred on a legal argument as to the right of Parliament to extend the scope of the measure to proceedings of State legislatures. The Minister for Law, Mr. H.V.Pataskar, said doubts had been raised that this would really fall within the privileges of a House and hence was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the legislatures concerned. He, however, refrained from giving any dogmatic opinion but suggested that the law might be passed as it was and, on seeing its working, the States might themselves pass such a law. This stand of the Law Minister was hotly contested by all sections of the House, who maintained that the law really fell within the Concurrent List and was covered by the entries relating to "criminal law" and "actionable wrongs" and Parliament was fully competent to enact the measure. Members appealed to the Government to consider the position afresh and at a later date bring forward a Bill to extend the protection to State legislature proceedings also.

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