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Maharashtra Election Commissioner gets two-day jail term

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Assembly, in an unprecedented step on Thursday, sentenced State Election Commissioner Nand Lal to two days of imprisonment for breach of privilege. Mr. Lal was arrested and sent to the Arthur Road jail here.

The chairman of the privilege committee of the House, Chandrakant Chhajed, tabled his report in the House and stated that it was proved that Mr. Lal had committed the breach of the privilege of the House and moved that he be imprisoned for seven days.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh intervened saying that “seven days punishment was too much and it should be reduced to two days.” The House accepted the amendment and passed the privilege motion against Mr. Lal.

The State BJP president and an MLC, Nitin Gadkari, denounced the imprisonment of Mr. Lal and accused the State government of “indulging in politics of revenge that throttled democracy.”

Mr. Lal had issued an order on March 7, 2006, that only the State Election Commission had the powers to conduct elections of office bearers of civic bodies such as mayors, deputy mayors and chairmen.

This had prompted a legislator, Janardan Chandurkar, to table a breach of privilege notice against Mr. Lal on March 27, 2006. His contention was that Mr. Lal’s order was in contravention of the election law made by the legislature. The House had referred the matter to the privilege committee.

Later, Mr. Chhajed told The Hindu that Mr. Lal had not responded to several summons of the privilege committee to appear before it.

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