NEW DELHI: The Janata Dal suffered a setback, last Friday, with the Lok Sabha Speaker, Shivraj Patil, allotting separate scats outside the party bloc to the 20 MPs, including the eight expelled, who had paraded themselves before the Speaker on August 7, seeking recognition as a group.

The Speaker in an “interim order” given on August 12 ruled that the 20 members be permitted to be seated separately from the other members of the Janata Dal Parliamentary Party for the “purpose of functioning in the House” until this matter is finally disposed of.

The contentious issue whether or not the Janata Dal has split took a new turn with the ruling of the Speaker. Raising a host of legal and political issues in his order, Patil said, the MPs who had paraded before him did not claim that they had “split’ from other members of the Janata Dal. They appeared to be claiming that they are the “main and the original” party. The Speaker’s order which was dated August 12 was hailed by Ajit Singh as a recognition of the fact that a “substantial” number of the Janata Dal MPs had “repudiated” the leadership of V.P.Singh, The Janata Dal Parliamentary party leader V.P.Singh expressed “shock” and “surprise” over Patil’s hurriedly given order and said that the Speaker had become a “party” to the game. It would sound a “death knell” of the Anti-Defection Law, Singh commented. The Speaker asked the Secretary General of the Lok Sabha to communicate the order, which is titled, “In the matter of communication received from Sri Ram Lakhan Yadav and others,” with the copies of relevant documents to the concerned parties for their comments. The dates of framing of rules may be fixed on receipt of   the comments or after the expiry of dates given for receipt of the comments by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, it said.

Pati  said that a Janata Dal delegation including the party president and Rajya Sabha member S.R .Bommai, V.P.Singh and others had met him on August 8. They pleaded that the 20 MPs did not form one-third of the totally membership of the Janata Dal Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha. Therefore, it was not a split in the Janata Dal.

Bommai who was more “explicit’ legal grounds said the 20 could not form a group as eight of them were expelled from the party in two installments and another four were liable to be disqualified under the Anti-Defection Act for defiance on the party whip in the voting of the no-confidence motion against the Narasimha Rao government.

The Speaker asked them to “enlighten” him some of the points and give the submission in writing.

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 28, 1992