New Delhi, March 15: The four Lok Sabha MPs, who were caught on camera demanding bribes to sanction projects under the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) scheme, have got away lightly, with a parliamentary panel recommending they be reprimanded and suspended from the House till March 22.

The MPs ? Faggan Singh Kulaste and Ramswaroop Koli from the BJP, Samajwadi Party’s Paras Nath Yadav and the Congress’s Alemao Churchill ? are already under suspension since December 20, 2005, a day after Operation Chakravyuh, the sting operation by STAR News, was telecast.

The report of the panel, chaired by V. Kishore Chandra Singh Deo, a Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh, was tabled in the Lok Sabha today.

On March 17, when Parliament meets after the Holi recess, a motion for adopting its recommendations will be moved by the leader of the Lok Sabha, Pranab Mukherjee. As the seven-member committee is represented by almost all major parties, the House is expected to adopt the motion unanimously.

The committee also suggested that the government “suitably” revise the guidelines for the MPLAD scheme to bar NGOs and private institutions from getting funds. “It is felt that most of these are merely facades for unscrupulous organisations formed to usurp funds” that are meant for community development, the report says.

In the expose, members of Dedicated Investigators’ Guild (DIG), an investigating agency, had posed as representatives of an NGO asking the MPs to sanction their projects.

An earlier TV sting operation had caught 11 MPs taking money for posing questions in Parliament. That, too, was probed by a parliamentary committee, but the punishment recommended was expulsion. The MPs challenged the decision in Delhi High Court, which transferred the cases to the Supreme Court, where they are being heard.

Sources said the reasons for pronouncing a milder “verdict” this time was that none of the MPs was seen taking money on camera and the earlier case had been legally contested. But it accepted that negotiations for consideration and commission took place.

The Rajya Sabha ethics panel, which looked into the charges against its two members caught in the same operation, has recommended expulsion of Samajwadi Party leader Sakshi Maharaj but referred the case of the BSP’s Isam Singh to the privileges committee on the ground that he had resisted the overtures.