The Hindu : Front Page : Somnath stays away from proceedings

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Thursday, Mar 23, 2006

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Front Page

Somnath stays away from proceedings

— Photo: PTI

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee talking to media outside the Parliament House on Wednesday.

New Delhi: As Parliament was rocked on Wednesday by the controversy over members holding offices of profit, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee left the House after the first adjournment. He kept away, saying he did it as a matter of propriety after an issue had been raised over his being chairman of a body in Shantiniketan.

"Since my name has appeared in a newspaper with regard to which some honourable members have been agitating, I said in my Constitutional duty ... [am] not sitting in the Chair by way of propriety," he told reporters in Parliament House.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had raked up the issue of Mr. Chatterjee being Chairman of the Sriniketan-Shantiniketan Development Corporation. She said he was holding an office of profit, a ground on which he could be disqualified. — PTI

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