Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday referred the notice of privilege against Congress President Rahul Gandhi to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
On examination of the notice of privilege moved under Rule 187 of the Rules of the House by BJP's Rajya Sabha member Bhupender Yadav along with related documents, Naidu maintained that the matter seems to involve prima facie a question of privilege.
Yadav had also raised the matter in the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
A complaint against Rahul is already pending before the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha, chaired by BJP veteran L K Advani, after the speaker forwarded the same to it.
The privilege notice against Congress President Gandhi is related to a tweet put out by him in which he questioned the authority of the Rajya Sabha and questioned its decision.
Yadav in his notice on December 28 had alleged that there is a “breach of privilege” by the Congress leader as he used derogatory words against Finance Minister and Leader of the House Arun Jaitley, by twisting his name.
“Dear Mr Jaitlie — thank you for reminding India that our PM never means what he says or says what he means. #BJPLies,” the Congress president said, while putting out a video of the Prime Minister's speech against his predecessor and Jaitley's remarks made in Rajya Sabha.
Yadav said the Congress leader had “deliberately twisted” the spelling of Jaitley's surname to 'Jaitlie', which was “highly derogatory”.
The Congress president, Yadav said, deliberately misinterpreted the proceedings of Rajya Sabha in order to “malign the government, which constitutes an affront to the dignity of the House”.
Yadav had earlier sought to know what action was being initiated against Gandhi on his privilege notice, over which Naidu told the members in the House that the same was under his examination and he would take a view on it at the earliest.
Rahul's tweet had followed the statement of Jaitley in the House on December 27 as a part of solution negotiated with the Congress at the behest of Rajya Sabha Chairman to resolve the protracted stalemate on the issue of alleged remarks of Modi against former Vice-President Hamid Ansari and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. As a part of the understanding, the ruling and opposition parties had clarified and reiterated their respect for and commitment to uphold the dignity of the top dignitaries of the country.
Jaitley stated in the House that the Prime Minister did not question nor did he mean to question the commitment to the nation of either Dr Singh or Ansari.