Hauling up someone for breach of privilege is not throttling of expression: Vice President  

Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar alluded to disruptions in Parliament and explained the Breach of Privilege mechanism

“Hauling up someone for breach of [House] privilege is not throttling of [right to freedom of] expression,” Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar said in Chennai on Tuesday.

“The House has to preserve the dignity of 140 crore people so that it does not become an akhada (arena) or a dumping ground for any information, unverified, allegatory, reckless, to set narratives,” he said at the inauguration of the Centre for Innovation (CFI) in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras. Mr. Dhankar added that in the House, there would be “full flow of information and expression....but it comes with one tag. You must authenticate the information. You must take responsibility for the information and if that turns out to be wrong, we have a mechanism in Parliament [called] ‘breach of privilege’.”

The mechanism is evoked to throttle dumping of recklessly made unauthenticated information, misusing the platform of Parliament, he explained.

Mr. Dhankar also said he was reflecting on some editorials. Article 105 of the Constitution protected Members of Parliament from criminal litigation, a great privilege. But this privilege was not without responsibility and accountability. “It does not give the member license to share anything on the floor of the House,” he explained.

The Vice President said youngsters must rationally question persons who “play politics” and “they must be combated and neutralised”.

Mr. Dhankar was alluding to issues such as the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question and the George Soros issue that led to disruptions in both Houses of Parliament.

He urged students to take pride in the country’s accomplishments, asking them to look at the scale at which things are being executed currently. Around 150 million gas connections had been given and 220 crore beneficiaries had been administered COVID vaccines and also received digital certification, he added.