Amritpal plea hearing: Centre tells HC panel reviewing cases of absent MPs

The Centre informed the Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday that a 15-member committee, headed by West Tripura MP Biplab Kumar Deb, has been constituted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to examine leave applications of all absent members of Parliament, including Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh.

During the resumed hearing of Amritpal’s petition in which he has sought directions to the Punjab government and the Centre to allow him to attend Parliament, additional solicitor general Satya Pal Jain, accompanied by advocate Dheeraj Jain, told a bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Sumeet Goel that the committee, formed on February 24, would review the cases of all such MPs.

Amritpal’s counsel RS Bains did not appear before the court and sought time for arguments.

Taking the Centre’s statement on record, the high court adjourned the matter to March 4.

Amritpal Singh, who heads the radical Sikh outfit, Waris Punjab De, is jailed in Assam’s high-security Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act since April 23, 2023.

In his petition before the high court last week, he sought permission to attend parliamentary sessions, arguing that his prolonged absence violates his constitutional rights and leaves his constituency unrepresented. He pointed out that an absence exceeding 60 days could result in his seat being declared vacant, affecting nearly 19 lakh constituents.

He requested authorisation to meet officials and ministers regarding the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) to address local development projects. He submitted that he had requested permission from the Lok Sabha Speaker on November 30 last year to attend the parliamentary session and was informed that he had already been absent from sittings for 46 days. Despite representations to the deputy commissioner/district magistrate, he has not received a response, prompting him to seek judicial intervention, he had stated in the plea.

Amritpal won the Khadoor Sahib seat with 1.9 lakh votes as an Independent candidate and was administered the oath of office on July 5 last year. Since then, he has not attended Parliament.

He has been in Dibrugarh jail since his arrest along with nine others after a month-long chase in April 2023. They were detained following a crackdown on the Waris Punjab De on March 18, 2023. In April 2024, the Punjab government re-invoked the NSA against all of them.