Bar on courts inquiring into parliamentary proceedings
Also called: Article 122 · Topic: Parliamentary Procedure, Committees and Privileges · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Article 122 says a court cannot question what happens inside Parliament just because a rule of procedure was not followed exactly. Parliament runs its own business, and judges do not check how it does so. The bar is narrow, though. Courts can still step in if the proceedings are illegal or unconstitutional, meaning they break a law or the Constitution itself. This rule is one of the collective privileges of the Houses (rights that belong to each House as a whole). It also matters in the money-bill dispute, because the Speaker's certificate that a bill is a money bill is called "final" (Art. 110(3)).
Example
In the Raja Ram Pal case (2007), the Supreme Court said a House may expel its members. Courts can still review such an expulsion in a limited way, checking for illegality or unconstitutionality and not for a mere slip in procedure.
Don't confuse with
- Immunity of members under Art. 105(2): this protects individual MPs from court cases over what they say or how they vote. Art. 122 protects the proceedings of the House as a whole.
Related concepts
- Parliamentary privileges
- Individual privileges
- Collective privileges
- Breach of privilege
- Contempt of the House
- Privilege motion
- Committee of Privileges
- Ethics Committee
- Keshav Singh case
- Raja Ram Pal case