New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has set up a seven-judge bench on Monday which will be headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. The bench has been constituted for the reconsideration of the judgement in the JMM Bribery Case which is more popularly known as the PV Narasimha Rao Case. This case had granted immunity from prosecution to MPs/MLAs in case they accepted bribery and voted or asked a question in a particular biased manner. A five-judge Constitution bench, which was also led by the CJI, had said that the judgement made in this case in 1998, will be reviewed and reconsidered by a judge comprising of seven judges. Why has a seven-judge been constituted for this case and what was the JMM Bribery Case about, know here..
As mentioned earlier, a seven-judge bench has been constituted for the review/reconsideration of the judgement given in 1998, regarding the JMM Bribery Case, popularly known as the PV Narasimha Rao Case. The seven-judge bench will include Justices AS Bopanna, MM Sundaresh, PS Narasimha, JB Pardiwala, Sanjay Kumar and Manoj Misra apart from the CJI. The SC Registry has issued a notice in this regard, has disclosed the composition of the bench and has also told that the hearing in this matter will begin from October 4, 2023.
To understand in a nutshell, the Supreme Court Verdict of 1998 in the PV Narasimha Rao (JMM Bribery) Case provides absolute immunity to all legislators from prosecution for bribery. In 1993, 10 MPs of JMM and Janata Dal had cast their votes to defeat a no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha against the minority government of PM PV Narasimha Rao. At that time, Justice SC Agarwal of the Supreme Court had held that in case MPs voted no-confidence motion after bribery, they will be entitled to protection from criminal prosecution for bribery and criminal conspiracy conferred on them by Article 105(2) of the Constitution of India.
According to Article 105(2), no member of Parliament shall be liable toany court proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in parliament or any committee. For MLAs, a similar provision is listed under Article 194(2).
The five-judge bench had said that the verdict given by Justice Agarwal states that the offence is complete with the acceptance of the money or agreement to accept money being concluded and is not dependent on performance of the receiver’s illegal promise. The bench further added that this aspect had not been dealt with, in the judgement of the majority.
The bench said, “For these reasons, we’re of the view that the correctness of the view of the majority in Narasimha Rao shall be considered by a larger bench of seven-judge bench.” This question has arose again when Sita Soren, daughter-in-law of JMM Chief Sibu Soren questioned her prosecution on charges of bribery during the 2012 Rajya Sabha Elections; the validity of the Jharkhand High Court’s judgement was challenged in 2014 and sought direction to nullify any criminal prosecution launched against her.
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