NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday disapproved a privilege notice served by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh against Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks in the House, while replying to discussion over Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill 2024.
While disapproving the privilege notice, Dhankhar said, the Home Minister has authenticated his remarks by citing a 1948 government press release mentioning that a Congress leader was part of the management of Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.
Ramesh on Wednesday had moved the notice against Shah for “casting aspersions” on Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi.
The Chairman said the Home Minister had, after making certain remarks while replying to a debate on the Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, 2024 in Rajya Sabha on March 25, agreed to authenticate his statement.
The minister, he said, cited a press statement issued by the Press Information Bureau of the Government of India on January 24, 1998, wherein the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had announced starting of the PMNRF, which was to be managed by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, president of the Indian National Congress and certain other people.
“I have carefully gone through it. I find there has been no transgression,” Dhankhar said, rejecting the breach of privilege notice.
However, when the Chairman was announcing his decision, Ramesh was heard in the House saying the act of authentication “is clever by half” and “we are not in 1948, but in 2025”.