2015 Kerala Assembly ruckus: Legislators indulging in vandalism cannot claim immunity, says SC

‘Vandalism on the Assembly floor cannot be equated with the right to protest by Opposition legislators,’ says Bench.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that legislators who indulge in vandalism and general mayhem cannot claim parliamentary privilege and immunity from criminal prosecution while dismissing appeals by Kerala government and ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) to withdraw a criminal case against their leaders who destroyed public property and disrupted a Budget speech on the State Assembly floor in 2015. “Parliamentary privileges and immunities are not ‘gateways’ for legislators to claim exception from the law of the land, especially criminal law,” a Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah observed in a judgment. Vandalism on the Assembly floor could not be equated with the right to protest by Opposition legislators. Destruction of public property could not be equated with the exercise of freedom of speech.