New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to review its January 10 order that upheld the termination of the membership of 10 Lok Sabha members and one Rajya Sabha member for their involvement in the "cash for query" scam in December 2005.

Six file review petitions

Of the 11 expelled, six — Raja Ram Pal, Ram Sewak Singh, Suresh Chandel, Pradip Gandhi and Anna Saheb M.K. Patil (all Lok Sabha) and Chhatrapal Singh Lodh of the Rajya Sabha — filed petitions seeking a review of the judgment.

Observing no merits, a Bench, comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justices C.K. Thakker, R.V. Raveendran, D.K. Jain and V.S. Sirpurkar, dismissed the petitions.

Power of expulsion

The court held in January that the powers and privileges of Parliament under Article 105 would include the power of expulsion of their members.

It said: "Parliament is empowered to define, by law, the powers, privileges and immunities of each House and of their Members and Committees in respects other than those specified in the Constitutional provisions."

``Court shall not interfere''

"This court shall not interfere so long as there is some relevant material sustaining the action. We find this material was available in the form of raw footage of video recordings, the nature of contents whereof are reflected in the inquiry reports and on which subject the petitioners have not raised any issue of fact."

It held that the right to represent the people of a particular constituency was not an absolute right and there could be certain limitations.

The Bench said: "Expulsion is related to the conduct of the member that lowers the dignity of the House, which may not have been necessarily known at the time of election. It is not a capricious exercise of the House, but an action to protect its dignity before the people of the country. ``This is also an integral aspect of our democratic setup. In our view, the power of expulsion is not contrary to a democratic process. It is rather part of the guarantee of a democratic process."

Petitions dismissed

Dismissing the petitions by a majority of 4:1, the court said: "proper opportunity to explain and defend having been given to each of the petitioners, the procedure adopted by the two Houses of Parliament cannot be held to be suffering from any illegality, irrationality, unconstitutionality, violation of rules of natural justice or perversity."

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