The writer, known for her volatile and satirical comments, had criticized the government's decision through Twitter terming it as "Dadagiri". Taking note of her alleged 'offensive' comments, a Shiva Sena MLA had filed a complaint in the assembly for a privilege motion against her. The Secretariat had sought her response by April 28.
After reading out her 'tweets' on the controversy, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and P C Pant said prima facie her comments appeared to be critical of the government's decision and not against the assembly. Her counsel cited TOI's report on April 9 on the issue and said: "It has never been so extreme when a citizen expressed his/her views about a government decision."
Staying the privilege notice, the bench issued notice to the chairman and the principal secretary of Maharashtra Legislative Secretariat asking them to file their responses to De's petition in 8 weeks' time. Similar notice was also sent to Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik who had filed the complaint against her.
De's petition detailed provisions relating to breach of privilege and said the notice to her was 'unwarranted' as she had not even remotely interfered in the House proceedings, the sole ground on which such a notice could be issued. She said the assembly notice has seriously violated her right to freedom of speech.
Her counsel said the assmbly's notice seriously violated her fundamental rights, being "wholly unreasonable, arbitrary, irrational".
"Such writing in no way amounted either to an attempt to obstruct or hinder the proceedings of the House but was nothing more than fair comment on a proposed legislation being mooted by the state government. It is submitted that should such writings be treated as amounting to a breach of privilege against assembly, it would strike against the very structure of democracy and basic structure of the Constitution," the petitioner said.
De said if notice was issued for criticizing a government policy, it would stifle the citizen's free speech and opinion and the right to protest, sounding a death knell for democracy.
Claiming herself to be a proud Indian and Maharashtrian, she said her tweets were comments on government decision and did not even come near the periphery of the functioning of the legislative assembly.
http://ift.tt/1kuDWdc Court,Shobhaa De,Maharashtra assembly
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