Speaker shoots down discussion on Hema Committee report in Assembly, UDF walks out

Speaker A N Shamseer on Friday summarily rejected an adjournment motion moved by UDF's Vadakara MLA K K Rema on the Hema Committee report saying the issue was sub-judice.

The Speaker did not allow Opposition Leader V D Satheesan even to make a walk out speech. The Speaker also stressed that it was his decision to reject the motion, and not the government's. "When the Chair itself rejects the motion, it is against Parliamentary decorum to make a walk-out speech. But you can make a brief walk-out statement," the Speaker said.

The Opposition Leader told the Speaker that he was responsible for the UDF bringing the issue to the Assembly as an adjournment motion. "When we asked a question related to this, you told us to bring this up as a Submission or anything else other than a question," Satheesan said. Nonetheless, the Opposition Leader did not contest the Speaker's decision and staged a walkout without fuss.

Later, he told reporters that the Speaker's action was unfair as there were innumerable precedents of the Assembly discussing issues that were in the courts. The 'solar case' is a telling example, Satheesan said.

Had the adjournment motion been tabled, the UDF's crucial argument would have been that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Culture Minister Saji Cherian had lied about the contents of a letter written by Justice Hema to forever stall investigation into the grave sexual offences detailed in the Hema Committee report.

The government had said that Justice Hema, in a letter to the government, had sought an assurance that the contents of the report would not be made public under any circumstances.

"She has not said anything of that sort," Satheesan said, and read out from the last line of Justice Hema's letter to the government: "We have been following the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in various decisions in keeping the matter extra confidential. I would also take the liberty to alert you to follow these principles before parting with the report to anybody in a routine manner."

Clearly, Satheesan said the Justice had only asked the government to keep in mind certain guidelines laid down by the SC before making the report public. "She did not tell the government not to publish. But the CM and the Culture Minister gave Justice Hema's words an unintended spin," Satheesan said.

Satheesan also argued that the government was bound to act - "register an FIR and begin an investigation" - when it had been informed of a series of sexual offences that had been committed. "Not to act on the information is a criminal offence," Satheesan said.

If the victims were reluctant to appear before the Special Investigation Team, Satheesan said it was the consequence of the government's pro-offender reputation. "We saw how the government protected the abusers in the Walayar case where school girls subjected to rape were found hanging," Satheesan said. Even the courts had flagged the " lethargy" of the LDF Government in these cases, Satheesan said. "They will go to any lengths to protect people close to them," he said.

K K Rema said that if there was a name for the shameless eagerness to throw a protective shield around hunters, it has to be 'LDF government'. She said that pages that even the High Court did not want concealed were not published by the government. "The government is trying to protect a mafia in the film industry that is scared not of the public ignominy if their names are revealed but of the inconvenience that could result from the legal process," Rema said.

Satheesan said that the victims would have fearlessly come forward had the government given them confidence. "It should have told the victims that their names would be kept confidential and that it would stand by them to bring the rapists to book. But the government did no such thing," Satheesan said.

Rema said the Hema Committee report was a big fraud played on the people of Kerala. "There is no legal standing for this report. It was not constituted under the Commission of Enquiries Act and so is nothing but a study report," she said.