Supreme Court Refers MLAs and MPs Corruption Immunity Case to Seven-Judge Bench

The constitutional legitimacy of the protection MPs and MLAs enjoy from criminal prosecution for corruption, even if they receive bribes for voting or making remarks in the House, was referred to a seven-judge bench by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

In the 1998 P.V. Narasimha Rao case, a five-judge panel had determined that these elected officials have such a shield. As the case involves public morality, a second five-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud referred it to a seven-judge court on Wednesday. There was no need to refer the case to a larger bench, according to attorney general R. Venkataramani and senior counsel Raju Ramachandran, who were representing JMM leader Sita Soren.

The bench presided over by Justice Chandrachud was addressing a referral made in 2019 by a three-judge panel consisting of the then-CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices P.C. Pant and A.M. Khanwilkar to discuss the validity of the 1998 decision before a seven-judge panel.

On Wednesday, Venkataramani and Ramachandran claimed that the Sita Soren case did not involve constitutional law and that a three-judge bench could reach a decision based solely on the facts of the case.

Sita had appealed the Jharkhand High Court's decision to deny her request to have the CBI charge her with a crime for accepting a bribe in order to cast her vote in a Rajya Sabha election in 2012.

The argument for submitting the case to a seven-judge constitution bench was supported by amicus curiae and prominent attorneys P.S. Patwalia and Gopal Sankaranarayan. They argued that MPs and MLAs cannot have a higher level of protection from prosecution for corruption than the general population.

We must also keep in mind that it also includes our elected officials' public morality. If so, we shouldn't put off making a judgment until an unknowable day in the future, according to CJI Chandrachud.

Justices A.S. Bopanna, M.M. Sundresh, J.B. Pardiwala, and Manoj Mishra made up the panel that made this decision. The panel stated: "We are of the considered view that the correctness of the judgment in P.V. Narasimha Rao vs. State needs to be considered by a seven-judge bench."

Legislators are immune from prosecution for actions taken in the course of performing their legislative duties under Articles 105(2) and 194(2).