NEW DELHI: An all-party meeting of leaders here on Tuesday evening authorised Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee to set up a Lok Sabha committee to take up `misconduct' of MPs that lowered the prestige of the House as well as `misuse' of MPs' privileges.

It is learnt that the committee could be set up as early as Wednesday and it would be on the lines of the committee set up in late 2005 to look into the cash-for-questions scandal.

Regular committee

It was unanimously felt that the House should take a "very serious view" of all such incidents, the Speaker later told reporters. It was felt that instead of setting up ad hoc committees to examine a specific case that might come to the notice of the Lok Sabha, a regular committee should be set up. The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha has not been functional as its chairman — former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar — has been unwell.

Katara case

The all-party meeting was convened after the BJP MP from Gujarat, Babubhai Katara, was arrested by the police while trying to take a woman out of the country on his wife's passport. The Katara case had been discussed at the meeting and it was noted that police investigations were on and that Mr. Katara was in judicial custody. Names of other MPs who might be involved in human trafficking had also been mentioned in media reports, "but I have no direct information on this," Mr. Chatterjee said.

The message that the Lok Sabha wanted to send out — and there was unanimity on this — that the House was very "very serious" about this. "Let no one think that we are ignoring this," Mr. Chatterjee added.

It seems that the regular committee would also go into issues related to "misuse" of facilities given to MPs, be it sub-letting of residential accommodation given to them, misuse of railway passes given for spouses or companions, and even issues related to "conflict of interest" arising out of MPs' membership of standing committees related to areas in which they have business interest

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