In a rare instance, the West Bengal legislative assembly moved a privilege motion against the Deputy Superintendent of CBI and the Assistant Director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly demeaning the chair of the Speaker for not appearing before him despite several summons.

The two officers were summoned by Speaker Biman Banerjee in the assembly to clarify their stance on filing the chargesheet in Narada sting operation case against three MLAs — Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee and Madan Mitra without taking the permission of the Speaker.

Moving the privilege motion, deputy chief whip Tapas Roy said, “that three ruling party legislators — Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra and Subrata Mukherjee — were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) earlier this year in connection with the Narada case but neither was permission sought from Speaker Biman Banerjee nor was he intimated”.

“This action by both the CBI and ED had lowered the dignity of the Speaker’s Chair and subsequently breach of privileges was moved against Satyendra Singh, Deputy SP of CBI, and Rathin Biswas, Assistant Director of ED,” Roy added.

“The privilege motion has been passed with a voice vote in the West Bengal Assembly and sent to the privilege committee where it will see strong opposition by BJP members. TMC is scared of CBI and ED because they are involved in almost all the scams,” Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said.

Speaker Biman Banerjee referred the matter to the committee of privileges and urged the panel to investigate and submit its report to the House in its next session.

Earlier on Tuesday, Speaker Biman Banerjee strongly criticised the Central agencies like CBI and ED for not appearing before him and alleged that in the process, the probe agencies not only lowered the dignity of the house and its members but insulted the people of West Bengal as a whole.

Speaking before members of the assembly, the Speaker had said: “As the speaker of this August House, I am entrusted to preserve the dignity, sanctity not only of this house but also of its members. Central agencies like CBI and ED had been given enough opportunity to explain their points not once but three times but they have avoided stating their stance and the justification of the action taken by them before the chair. They have questioned the very authority of the chair.”

The speaker went on to say that the language of their letters in content and tenor had been replete with wild accusations and unwarranted allegations were made. It was deliberately calculated to lower down the dignity of the members of the house.

“It was perpetrated and was done deliberately and wilfully to show disrespect to the house and the people of West Bengal as a whole. Some actions of the central agencies tend to lower the prestige and dignity of the house. As such, I have no other option but to put the whole matter before the House,” the Speaker had added.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed.)