Parliamentary Privileges in Indian Governance System: Role of Free Speech in Promoting Transparency

Abstract

Parliamentary privilege as a concept can be defined in various manners and has been done so by various eminent jurists. May defines the privileges as, “The sum of peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals. Thus, privilege though part of the law of the land, is to a certain extent an exception from the ordinary law.”3 The legal concept regarding parliamentary privileges is laid down under Article 105 and Article 194 of the Indian Constitution. As per these provisions the members of Parliament have been given protection from being tried or prosecuted under any civil or criminal proceeding with regards to anything that they might say or approve or disprove by casting their vote in the parliament or any committee as has been exclusively provided in the constitution.4 The advantages are sure rights having a place with Parliament aggregately and some others having a place with the Members of Parliament individually, without which it would be inconceivable for the House to keep up with its autonomy of activity or the pride of position or for the individuals to release their capacities. While providing the explanations behind leaving the parliamentary privileges vague in the Indian Constitution, Dr. B R Ambedkar, while chairing the Constituent Assembly which drafted the Indian Constituion, brought up that aside from the advantage of the right to speak freely of discourse and resistance from capture, the advantages of parliament were a lot more extensive and amazingly hard to characterize. Thus, according to him it was not workable to create a complete code on the above subject matter and incorporate the same as a part of Indian Constitution. So, it was thought best to leave it to the Parliament to define and limit its privileges whereas the Indian Parliament was vested with the same set of privileges that were enjoyed by the England House of Commons.