Anushka Jain & Yash Mahmia, Alliance School Of Law, Alliance University, Bangalore
ABSTRACT
The concept of Rule of Law provides that no one in a state is above the law and everyone is equal in the eyes of law the thus mentioned provision is enshrined in the Indian Constitution under article 14 and article 15. But under article 5(1) and 5(2) the members of parliament are given an immunity from proceedings before any court in cases of anything said by him or any vote given by him in the parliament. Article 105 talks about freedom of speech for parliamentarians but it stands on a different footing as in comparison to the provision enshrined under article 19(10)(a) where the latter is subject to reasonable restrictions for the citizen of India other than the parliamentarians. One thing also becomes important to note that privileges under Article 105 is given to a parliamentarian in the premises of parliament. Although it van be said that these kinds of privileges are given to the members of the legislative assembly for a smooth functioning of the parliament yet the question of equality in the Rule of Law lies hanging for legal research.
Therefore, this paper will look deep into the concepts of Rule of Law and its application or check if there is any exclusive principle for parliamentarians providing them special privileges and immunity. This paper will restrict itself to the ambit of Indian Constitution with a necessary amount of comparison with the American scheme of constitution. Therefore, this paper would be a secondary research deriving its data sources from articles, case laws, research papers and commentaries.
Keywords: Parliament, Privileges, rule of Law, reasonable restriction, constitution, Immunities.
Comments