Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla sets up multi-party Privileges Committee

New Delhi: Nearly two years after the new Lok Sabha was constituted, Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday announced the setting up of a multi-party Privileges Committee to be headed by senior BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad and having MPs like Jagadish Shettar, Manish Tewari and TR Baalu as members.

BJP has seven members, including Prasad, in the crucial panel while Congress has three and DMK, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena and Shiv Sena (UBT) have one MP each.

Besides Prasad, the BJP members in the panel are Shettar, Jagadambilka Pal, Trivendra Singh Rawat, Brijmohan Agarwal, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo and Ramvir Bidhuri. From the NDA side, Shiv Sena’s Shrirang Appa Chandu Barne is the only other member.

Congress has Lok Sabha Whip Manickam Tagore, who is under suspension till the end of Budget Session, and senior MP Tariq Anwar in the panel along with Tewari.

Floor leaders TR Baalu (DMK) and Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena-UBT), and senior MPs Dharmendra Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress) are also members of the panel.

Usually, the Privileges Committee is set up soon after the commencement of a new Lok Sabha and thereafter, the Speaker nominates members to the panel from time to time. In the previous Lok Sabha, the Privileges Committee was set up on October 9, 2019, four months after the 17th Lok Sabha was constituted.

The first Privileges Committee was set up on April 1, 1950 with 10 members and the panel strength rose to 15 on May 2, 1955.

The function of the committee is to examine questions involving breach of privilege of the House or of the members 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.