A bench of Supreme Court of India
comprising Justices T.S.Thakur, R.Banumathi in SLP (Crl) 2758/2014 titled as “Sita
Soren vs Union of India through CBI” in its order on 23rd September 2014
referred the issue of corruption by a MP/MLA to a larger bench. The court said “Since
the issue arises for consideration is substantial and of general public
importance, we refer these matters to a larger Bench of three Hon'ble Judges to
be constituted by Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India”.
The case is that the Election
Commission had in April 2012 countermanded the Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand
and handed over probe to CBI following allegations of bribery. The CBI in its
charge-sheet had accused Sita Soren of receiving Rs 1.5 lakh for proposing
nomination and also casting vote in favour of Raj Kumar Agarwal, an independent
candidate. She challenged her prosecution claiming immunity under Article
194(2) of the Constitution of India, which provided that no member of
legislature of a state shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in
respect of anything said or any vote given by him/her in the legislature or any
committee thereof. She cited the 1998 judgment in JMM MPs bribery case (
in which the apex court granted immunity from prosecution to MPs who took bribe
and voted to save the then Congress government of P V Narasimha Rao in Parliament). Jharkhand
High Court rejected her plea by coming to a conclusion that since she had not
voted for the candidate for whom the bribe was allegedly paid, she was not
entitled to immunity from prosecution as in the JMM MPs case the Supreme Court
had allowed Ajit Singh's prosecution for not voting even after allegedly taking
bribe.
The Supreme Court was of the view
that the 1998 judgment in JMM MPs bribery case need a fresh look and hence
referred the matter to CJI for constitution of a 3-Judge bench to decide the
issue. As per the procedure adopted by the apex court, a two-judge bench can
refer a question of law to a three-judge bench, which alone can decide whether
such a question merited consideration by a constitution bench.
In JMM MPs bribery case, a Constitution
bench by a 3-2 majority had held that those who took bribe but did not vote
were liable to be prosecuted under Prevention of Corruption Act as they would
not be entitled to immunity from prosecution granted to MPs under Article
105(2) of the Constitution.
