{"id":38118,"date":"2023-11-10T03:14:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T21:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=38118"},"modified":"2025-04-23T04:45:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T23:15:52","slug":"ethics-privileges-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/ethics-privileges-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics Committee vs Privileges Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>About the Ethics Committee<\/li>\n<li>Ethics Committee vs Privileges Committee<\/li>\n<li>News Summary Regarding Cash-for-Query (Mahua Moitra) Case<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee\u2019s report recommending the expulsion of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP (Mahua Moitra) will now go to the Lok Sabha Speaker.<\/li>\n<li>A complaint by a BJP MP that the TMC MP sought favours from a businessman to ask questions against industrialist Gautam Adani sparked a chain of events leading to the report, which was adopted by six votes to four recently.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About the Ethics Committee<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Objective: It oversees the moral and ethical conduct of members and examines cases of misconduct referred to it.<\/li>\n<li>History:\n<ul>\n<li>A Presiding Officers\u2019 Conference held in Delhi in 1996 first mooted the idea of ethics panels for the two Houses.<\/li>\n<li>Then Vice President (and Rajya Sabha Chairman) K R Narayanan constituted the Ethics Committee of the Upper House in 1997.<\/li>\n<li>In the case of Lok Sabha, a study group of the House Committee of Privileges recommended (in 1997) the constitution of an Ethics Committee, but it could not be taken up by Lok Sabha.\n<ul>\n<li>The Committee of Privileges finally recommended the constitution of an Ethics Committee during the 13th Lok Sabha.<\/li>\n<li>The late Speaker, G M C Balayogi, constituted an ad hoc Ethics Committee in 2000, which became a permanent part of the House only in 2015.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Appointment of members in Lok Sabha: The members of the Ethics Committee are appointed by the Speaker for a period of one year.\n<ul>\n<li>The Committee is currently headed by the BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Procedure for complaints\n<ul>\n<li>Any person can complain against a Member through another Lok Sabha MP, along with evidence of the alleged misconduct, and an affidavit stating that the complaint is not \u201cfalse, frivolous, or vexatious\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>If the Member himself complains, the affidavit is not needed.<\/li>\n<li>The Speaker can refer to the Committee any complaint against an MP.<\/li>\n<li>The Committee does not entertain complaints based only on media reports or on matters that are sub-judice.<\/li>\n<li>The Committee makes a prima facie inquiry before deciding to examine a complaint. It makes its recommendations after evaluating the complaint.<\/li>\n<li>The Committee presents its report to the Speaker, who asks the House if the report should be taken up for consideration. There is also a provision for a half-hour discussion on the report.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Ethics Committee vs Privileges Committee<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The work of the Ethics Committee and the Privileges Committee often overlap.\n<ul>\n<li>The Rules (for example, the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha) applicable to the Committee of Privileges also apply to the ethics panel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>An allegation of corruption against an MP can be sent to either body, but usually more serious accusations go to the Privileges Committee.\n<ul>\n<li>The mandate of the Privileges Committee is to safeguard the \u201cfreedom, authority, and dignity of Parliament\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>These privileges are enjoyed by individual Members as well as the House as a whole.<\/li>\n<li>An MP can be examined for breach of privilege; a non-MP too can be accused of breach of privilege for actions that attack the authority and dignity of the House.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Ethics Committee can take up only cases of misconduct that involve MPs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary Regarding Cash-for-Query (Mahua Moitra) Case<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Prejudiced and incorrect, say opposition MPs:\n<ul>\n<li>The 4 opposition members on the panel said the report recommending Moitra&#8217;s expulsion was &#8216;prejudiced and incorrect.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>The opposition MPs accused the Ethics Committee chairman and BJP members of leaking the proceedings of the panel in violation of rules.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What happens next?\n<ul>\n<li>According to former Lok Sabha Secretary General P. D. T. Achary, speaker now has the authority to decide whether to make the report public.<\/li>\n<li>In the upcoming session of Parliament, the committee&#8217;s chairperson will present the report in the House.<\/li>\n<li>Following that, there will be a debate on the matter, culminating in a vote on a government motion for the member&#8217;s expulsion.<\/li>\n<li>This could mark a potentially historic moment as the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee might be recommending the expulsion of a MP for the very first time.\n<ul>\n<li>Back in 2005, 11 MPs faced expulsion from Parliament in a different &#8216;cash-for-query&#8217; case.<\/li>\n<li>However, it&#8217;s worth noting that those expulsions were proposed by the Rajya Sabha Ethics Committee and a Lok Sabha Inquiry Committee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the importance of parliamentary committees?<\/h3>\n<p>Parliament deliberates on matters that are complex, and therefore needs technical expertise to understand such matters better. Committees help with this by providing a forum where Members can engage with domain experts during the course of their study.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2) What is Article 105 of the Constitution of India?<\/h3>\n<p>Article 105 in the Constitution of India describes powers, privileges, etc., of the Houses of Parliament and of the members and committees thereof.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/cash-for-query-case-ethics-panel-recommends-expulsion-of-mahua-moitra\/articleshowprint\/105096070.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Cash-for-query case: Ethics panel adopts report on Mahua Moitra, recommends expulsion of TMC member from Lok Sabha<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/political-pulse\/ls-ethics-committee-mahua-moitra-expulsion-9020642\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>IE<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee has recommended the expulsion of a TMC MP for seeking favours from a businessman to ask questions against an industrialist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":38119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}