RS Chairman rejects privilege notice against HM Amit Shah

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday rejected a privilege notice against Union Home Minister Amit Shah after the minister cited a 1948 government press release to authenticate his statement that a Congress leader was part of the management of the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

In his ruling on Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh’s breach of privilege notice, Dhankhar said Shah did not commit any “transgression” and that his statements during a debate earlier this week were in “absolute adherence to truth”.

He went on to state that the breach of privilege was invoked in haste to get traction in the media and asked the House Ethics Committee to lay down fresh guidelines on MP’s conduct on issues such as releasing communication with the chair or notices served.

Ramesh had moved the notice against Shah for “casting aspersions” on Congress Parliamentary Party head Sonia Gandhi while replying to a debate on the Disaster Management Bill, 2024 in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Dhankhar said when some members objected to his assertion, Shah agreed to authenticate his statement.

The Home Minister, he said, has backed his statement by producing a January 24, 1948 press release issued by the government’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) that announced the then PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s announcement of setting up of PMNRF.

The fund “will be managed by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the President of the Indian National Congress, the Deputy Prime Minister and there are some other Members,” Dhankhar said quoting from the release produced in support of Shah’s statement.

“I have carefully gone through the debate and what the Union Home Minister asserted... The Home Minister focused in categorical terms that this was the practice,” he said. “I find there has been no transgression. There has been absolute adherence to truth which is vindicated by a document that is available to the Hon’ble Members and that being the situation, I cannot persuade myself to accord any acceptance to this Notice of Question of Privilege against Shri Amit Shah, Minister of Home Affairs.”