Access to judiciary being weaponised; institutions not working within domain: Dhankhar

New Delhi: Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday questioned the need for parties to issue a Whip to its lawmakers, saying the system is subjecting a representative to servility and not allowing a person to use his or her mind.

Interacting with a batch of participants from Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership (IIDL), he also said access to judiciary has been weaponised in recent years and it is posing a great challenge to our governance.

Dhankhar, who is also Rajya Sabha Chairman, said, "why should there be a Whip? Whip means you are curtailing expression. You are curtailing freedom, you are subjecting a representative to servility. You don't allow such a person to use his or her mind. Examine whether the US has a whip or not. Find out in the last ten years, how decisions of the Senate have been influenced by persuasion but when you issue a whip there is no persuasion."

Claiming that "chaos, deception, disturbance and the kind is remote controlled" in the House, he said the lawmakers step in the temple with firm determination to carry out a command that this day is a day of dysfunction in the parliamentary legislature.

"Political parties are supposed to promote democracy but do the elected representatives have the freedom of expression? Whip comes in the way," he said.

Referring to disruptions in Parliament, he said once a temple of democracy, it has now become a "wrestling ground, a battleground". People have forgotten the word decorum and there is no concept of dignity anymore, he said.

He also said access to the judiciary has been "weaponised" in recent years. "We have a fundamental right in the country, and the right is we can access the judiciary. It is a fundamental right. But in the last few decades, access to the judiciary has been weaponised. It has been weaponised, to another level, it is posing a great challenge to our governance, our democratic values," he said.

He said one will find advisories emanating, executive functions being performed by bodies that have no jurisdiction or jurisprudential authority or competence to perform those actions.

"To put it in layman's language, a tehsildar can never record an FIR. How so very strongly he may feel. Because our constitution ordains institutions to work within their own domain. Are they working? I will answer for you, no," he said.