Complaint against editor referred to Meghalaya assembly panel

Shillong, March 24 (IANS) Independent legislator John Leslee Sangma on Friday moved a privilege motion against an editor of an English daily in the Meghalaya assembly, which referred the matter to its Privilege Committee.

Speaker Abu Taher Mondal referred the matter to the assembly panel for examination and investigation into an article "Meghalaya Assembly debates: The Banal, the bizarre and the boring", by The Shillong Times Editor Patricia Mukhim.

"The article has breached the privilege of the house and also breached the privilege of all members as the article contains statements which insinuate that the members are debating on issues which are not in public interest and simply raising issues brought to them by interest groups," Sangma said, while moving the privilege motion.

"She had also ridiculed publicly the issues raised by the members in public interest without understanding the subject matter and had indirectly tried to create an opinion to lower the prestige of the house and the members," he added.

Sangma said: "Her (Mukhim) action amounts to obstruction of rights of the hon'ble members to raise issues which are of utmost public importance in the august house."

On Thursday, senior Meghalaya Civil Service official Zenithsky J. Sangma was reprimanded before the 60-member assembly for breaching the privilege of Independent legislator John Leslee K. Sangma.

Zenithsky is the third person to appear at the Bar of the house after Prosperly Chandra Chyne and Prof. Kapila Chatterjee.

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