08 Aug 2023: Home Minister Amit Shah said members had complained their names were included without their signatures in the proposal moved by the AAP leader. “Who signed on their behalf is a subject of investigation,” he said, and requested the Chair to record the statements of the complainant members.
5 Rajya Sabha MPs demanded a Privilege Motion against Raghav Chadha alleging that their “forged signatures” were added to the proposed select committee on the Delhi services bill
Narhani Amin, Phangon Konyak and Sudhanshu Trivedi of BJP, Sasmit Patra of BJD, Thambidurai of AIADMK have given individual complaints against Chadha over the inclusion in the proposed select committee
On the same day, the complaint was sent to the Committee of Privileges
11 August 2023: Raghav Chadha was suspended from parliament after Piyush Goyal's motion for suspension, pending a report by the Committee of Privileges[2]
“Nowhere has Piyush Goyal's motion for suspension or notice served by the Privileges Committee mentions the words - forgery or fake signatures, farziwada. It doesn't even remotely allege anything to this effect,” the AAP said
AAP said, “The Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States, which has been quoted by Members moving privilege against Raghav Chadha nowhere provides that there is a requirement of written consent or signature of the member whose name has been proposed to be included to the Select Committee"
Congress MP Shakti Singh Gohil says "...There is a law that if I am moving (the proposal to send Delhi NCT Amendment Bill to Select Committee), there is no compulsion to take consent of the member who has to be in the Committee. If the member does not want to be on the Committee, their name will be removed automatically. There is no provision to take the signature of any member whose name has been mentioned in the proposal"
The rules do not explicitly require the collection of signatures for proposed members
References:
https://www.outlookindia.com/national/raghav-chadha-accused-of-forging-signature-in-motion-against-delhi-service-bill-probe-ordered-news-308942 ↩︎
https://news.abplive.com/delhi-ncr/raghav-chadha-suspended-from-rajya-sabha-aap-privileges-committee-delhi-services-bill-forgery-fake-signatures-1622349 ↩︎ ↩︎
https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/delhi-services-bill-centre-aap-forged-signatures-raghav-chadha-12971302.html ↩︎
https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/select-committee-of-parliament ↩︎
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-politics/select-committee-delhi-services-bill-raghav-chadha-amit-shah-8882535/ ↩︎
