Friday, January 20 2006 15:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: An all-party meeting today (Jan 20, 2006) strongly felt that Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee should not reply to the Supreme Court notice on the issue of expulsion of ten MPs in the wake of cash-for-query scam.

The meeting convened by the Speaker saw near unanimity on the stand, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was of the view that while Chatterjee should not appear in person, he can send his representative to put across his views in the court, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Prabhunath Singh told reporters after the two-and-a-half hour meeting.

BJP leader V K Malhotra said the Speaker should send his views on the matter to the Supreme Court, which has to take the final decision in the matter.

He also said there were contradictory orders of different High Courts on whether the legislature had the power to expel a Member.

He added that Punjab and Haryana High Court had ruled that the legislature had no right to expel a member, the Madhya Pradesh High Court opined that it had.

Leaders of almost all major parties attended the meeting.