SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party (PDP) MLA Waheed ur Rehman Para has given notice of a motion of privilege against the Chief Secretary and Law Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir, alleging that their questioning of the contents and language of a House resolution raises concerns about the authority and privileges of the elected Legislature.
Para submitted the notice to the Speaker, saying the motion was prompted by concerns placed on record by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah regarding the role and conduct of the two senior officers in relation to a resolution discussed in the Legislative Assembly.
In his notice, Para argued that the power of an elected Legislature to initiate, deliberate upon, amend and adopt resolutions constitutes a core parliamentary function. He said government officers could provide administrative or legal advice within the scope of their duties, but such advice should not, in his view, amount to questioning or constraining the legislative authority of the House.
Para said that if the facts stated by the Chief Minister were correct, the matter raised a question of legislative privilege and the separation between the elected Legislature and the executive bureaucracy.
He urged the Speaker to examine the circumstances in which objections to the resolution were raised and take appropriate action under the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business and applicable law governing the privileges of the House.
The PDP MLA stressed that his motion should not be construed as support for the Chief Minister’s resolution itself.
“For the avoidance of doubt, this Motion is not an endorsement of the Hon’ble Chief Minister’s resolution,” Para said in the notice, adding that he had “serious reservations” about its substance, language and lack of clarity.
He said he had exercised his right as an elected Member to place those objections before the House, while maintaining that the separate issue was whether the elected Legislature could be subjected to scrutiny, approval or restraint by the bureaucracy while exercising its legislative functions.
Para said the matter was not limited to a particular resolution or Member but concerned what he described as the institutional rights of the Assembly and the representative mandate of its elected members.
He also argued that legislative privileges were safeguards for the authority of the House rather than privileges belonging to individual legislators.
The notice seeks the Speaker’s intervention to determine whether the circumstances cited by the Chief Minister warrant action under the Assembly’s privilege jurisdiction.
