Most of the people of the country feel that a MPs whom they have elected as their public representatives, do not go to the Parliament and raise their demands and problems, but maintain silence.
Either these leaders do not have any attachment with the public after the elections or they remain silent due to party discipline.
In such a situation, how and through what medium should the public raise its voice for 5 years?
In his petition filed in the Supreme Court, the petitioner named Karan Garg said that there is a complete absence of any formal mechanism through which citizens can connect with the MPs and take steps to ensure that there should be debate on important issues in Parliament. The absence of this mechanism creates a void between the public and the MPs. People are completely separated from the law making process.
The petition said that keeping citizens away from their inherent rights to fully participate in democracy is a matter of serious concern. This is an issue that needs to be corrected immediately.
This petition is of a unique type regarding public participation in Parliament. Regarding the demand for citizens to file petitions directly in Parliament for debate on important issues, a bench of Justice KM Joseph and Justice BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court told Rohan J, counsel for petitioner Karan Garg to give his petition to the Centre’s lawyer.
The case in this regard will be heard in February and the Centre’s side will be heard. The Supreme Court bench asked the petitioner’s lawyer that if the petition is allowed, it will hamper the functioning of Parliament because India has a much larger population than other countries. If petitions from citizens start coming from all sides, the functioning of Parliament will be disrupted.
The petitioner’s lawyer said that important questions on constitutional law have been raised in the petition. A voter is attentive to issues of public interest but after being elected he/she get opportunity to connect with the MPs.
Then the Supreme Court bench asked how is your writ petition against Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha maintainable?
On this, the petitioner’s lawyer said that this system is prevalent in the House of Commons of Britain where the issue related to the common public can be brought for consideration directly through the petition of the citizens.
When MPs do not raise any issue, the general public takes such initiative through petition.
