BJP MP to be expelled from LS for human trafficking

NEW DELHI: The committee that probed misconduct of Lok Sabha MPs has recommended that expulsion of BJP MP Babubhai Katara from the House for his grave misconduct.

���Katara has committed an act of grave misconduct as well as contempt of the Committee and of the House which has threatened to erode the credibility of Parliament as an institution,��� the panel said in its report presented in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

Mr Katara was arrested on April 18, 2007, at the Delhi airport on the charge of being involved in human trafficking. He was trying to illegally take a woman and a boy abroad on the passports of his wife and son.

Recommending that Mr Katara be expelled, the committee headed by senior Congress MP V Kishore Chandra Deo said, that ���he needs to be meted out the severest of punishments���. The BJP has already sought his expulsion for voting against the party line and in favour of the government during the July 22 trust vote.

���Making a fake diplomatic passport in his wife���s name can have no motive other than to indulge in human trafficking,��� the report stated. The committee held that the conduct of Mr Katara, MP from Dahod (SC) seat from Gujarat, has ���in fact brought disrepute to, and maligned the image of the entire fraternity of legislators.���

report said ���to say that the conduct of Katara was unbecoming, would be putting it rather too mildly.���

The committee pointed out that Mr Katara was given three opportunities to appear before it for giving his oral evidence but he did not come, citing health grounds.