LS ethics panel to probe bribery charges against TMC MPs

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan made the announcement soon after the Question Hour, a day after BJP, Congress and CPI(M) came together in Parliament to attack the TMC members allegedly shown accepting bribe in a sting and demanded an inquiry.

"Certain acts of alleged unethical conduct on the part of some members of the House have been reported in the press and the matter was also raised by some members in the House yesterday.

"These allegations are very serious in nature and seek to impact upon the very credibility of parliamentarians and Parliament as an institution and therefore need to be examined," Mahajan observed as she asked the L K Advani-headed 15-member committee for "examination, investigation and report".

The Speaker's decision is reminiscent of a similar probe by a parliamentary committee in the Lok Sabha and the Ethics Committee probe in the Rajya Sabha in 2005 in the wake of the 'cash-for-query' scam, which had led to the termination of membership of 11 MPs -- 10 members from Lok Sabha and one from Rajya Sabha. Somnath Chatterjee was the then Speaker.

In the purported sting telecast a few days back, five TMC members from Lok Sabha -- Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmad, Suvendu Adhikari, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Prasoon Banerjee, and Mukul Roy from the Rajya Sabha, were allegedly shown accepting money from fictitious officials of a firm.

Members, including those from the TMC, heard in pin-drop silence as Mahajan made the announcement.

"Keeping in view the extreme gravity of the matter, I have in exercise of my powers under the provisions of Rule 233B of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha decided to refer the matter to the Committee on Ethics for examination, investigate and report," she said.