NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla today reconstituted the House privileges committee naming BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad as the chairperson. The reconstituted panel will also have among senior MPs Manish Tewari and Manickam Tagore of the Congress, TR Baalu of the DMK, Kalyan Banerjee of the TMC, Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena UBT and Dharmendra Yadav of Samajwadi Party.
Lok Sabha sources said the Speaker has nominated the following members to the Committee of Privileges with effect from March 3 — Brijmohan Agrawal, Tariq Anwar, Manickam Tagore, T.R. Baalu, Kalyan Banerjee, Shrirang Appa Chandu Barne, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo, Jagdambika Pal, Trivendra Singh Rawat, Arvind Ganpat Sawant, Jagadish Shettar, Manish Tewari and Dharmendra Yadav.
Each House of Parliament and its Committees, collectively and members of each House individually, enjoy certain rights, privileges and immunities without which they cannot perform their functions efficiently and effectively.
The object of parliamentary privilege is to safeguard the freedom, the authority and the dignity of Parliament. They are enjoyed by individual members, because the House cannot perform its functions without unimpeded use of the services of its members and by each House collectively for the protection of its members and the vindication of its own authority and dignity. But they are available to individual members only insofar as they are necessary for the House to perform its functions freely without any let or hindrance. They do not exempt the members from the obligations to the society which apply to other citizens.
This Committee consists of 15 members nominated by the Speaker. Its function is to examine every question involving breach of privilege of the House or of the members of any Committee thereof referred to it by the House or by the Speaker. It determines with reference to the facts of each case whether a breach of privilege is involved and makes suitable recommendations in its report.