Panel for suspension of MPs in MPLAD scam

      New Delhi: The Members of Parliament involved in the scam for having accepted consideration for allotment of funds under the MPLAD scheme are likely to get away lightly with their suspension period limited only upto March 22, when the first leg of Parliamentary session concludes. The Parliamentary Committee, headed by Kishore Chandra Deo, that probed the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) scam today gave the benefit of doubt to the Members of Parliament and restricted the period of suspension for "improper conduct" in the implementation of the scheme only till March 22.

     The Committee held that the conduct of former Congress Goa Chief Minister Churchil Alemao, Paras Nath Yadav (SP), BJP MP Faggan Singh Kulaste and Ramswaroop Koli (BJP) was "not above board". Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on December 20 last year asked the MPs in the scam abstain from attending the Parliament. The Committee said that the period of abstention should be deemed to be their suspension from membership of the House. V K Malhotra (BJP), Mohammad Saleem (CPI-M), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), C Kuppuswamy(DMK), Prasanna Acharya (BJP) and D P Yadav (RJD) are the other members of the committee. The 51-page report, submitted by the Committee recommended only suspension and not expulsion, saying the "improper conduct on their part did not, strictly speaking, relate to their Parliamentary duties and none of them was actually shown as accepting money". The report states that the government should revise guidelines to plug the loopholes in the system and to initiate steps for laying guidelines and norms for sting operations. The five Lok Sabha members who came under scanner over alleged irregularities committed by them while spending their MPLAD funds caught under the 'Operation Chakravyuh', a sting operation by a television channel. The Centre on March 9 had said that the MPLAD scheme will continue to stay albeit with certain improvements to prevent its misuse and corruption. CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat had demanded that the funds should be brought directly under the supervision of the State Governments to which a large number of MPs protested. Vasan had emphasized that the Government has no intention to bring an amendment to the law to regulate the scheme and added that provisions like submission of utilisation certificate and other formalities, would ensure more transparency. Besides, these alleged corruption cases against the Members of Parliament, Election Commissioner Navin Chawla too was recently involved in a controversy over an allegation that private trusts run by his family had received donations from Congress MPs through the scheme.

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