A decision to summon him before the Privileges Committee of the Rajya Sabha was taken at a meeting on Monday, presided by the Deputy Chairman of the Upper House K Rahman Khan, Committee sources said, adding that the decision was unanimous. Besides Khan, the meeting was attended by Ravi Shankar Prasad, S S Ahluwalia, Shantaram Naik and R K Dhawan.

The next meeting of the Rajya Sabha Privileges Committee is scheduled for November 2, while that of the Lok Sabha Committee is expected on October 29 and 30.

The sources, however, said that no date has been fixed for Sen’s appearance before the Committees and that it would be decided after mutual consultation.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had referred the issue to the Committee after the External Affairs Ministry received a statement from Sen apologising for the remarks.

The Ministry had pleaded that, in view of the unqualified apology tendered by him, the matter be closed.
In view of the MPs’ strong feelings on the issue, the Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman referred the matter to the Privileges Committees.

The Lok Sabha Committee is headed by Congress MP V Kishorechandra Deo.

At the height of the controversy over the Left’s opposition to the nuclear deal, Sen used the words ‘headless chickens’ to describe those commenting against the deal.

Both the Houses witnessed an uproar, amid demands that Sen be summoned to the bar of the House. However, when the MPs raised the issue in Parliament, Ronen said that he had used the remark to refer to journalists and not MPs.

 Nevertheless, he still offered an unconditional apology if it had hurt their feelings.
A move to decide the issue jointly by the two Privileges Committees was deliberated upon, but was not pursued for want of proper convention and rules.