Supreme Court must not interfere with House Panel functioning: Delhi assembly

New Delhi: Any move of the Supreme Court to allow Facebook (India)’s representatives to not appear before a House committee of the Delhi assembly would have a spiraling impact on the functioning of parliamentary committees in legislature, the Delhi assembly has contended . Appearing for the Delhi assembly, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi accused Facebook of being on a “high constitutional horse” for refusing to appear before the committee. The top court, he said, has earlier repeatedly held that committee proceedings amount to House proceedings. “Normally the court doesn’t interfere with House proceedings or second guess House proceedings,” he said.

Facebook (India) cannot be a republic within the Republic of India, he argued and cautioned SC against interfering with a House panel summons asking top Facebook India executive to appear before it to explain its stand on the recent communal riots in Delhi. A House panel led by AAP leader Raghav Chadha had sought Facebook’s views in the backdrop of an attempt to fix the responsibility of social media giants in fomenting hate in the country and in fueling riots. Facebook had sought SC’s intervention to prevent its team from appearing before the panel.

Singhvi said that any court interference in the summons would pit it against the legislature and would mean a death-knell for the House functioning through panels. Much of the work of legislatures were done by House committees. This would be affected, Singhvi said, citing his own experience as a legislator. He also argued that Facebook cannot say it would appear before some panels and not before others. It could have sent any authorised representative to place its views on the subject, he said.