Calcutta, July 8: Calcutta High Court today gave liberty to a CPM legislator to lodge an FIR against “some ruling party MLAs” for allegedly assaulting him on the Assembly floor in December, setting aside a notion that only the Speaker had the power to act on incidents inside the House.

“It is a fact that the Speaker is the prime authority for initiating any action for any incident on the Assembly floor, but this is limited to the case of legislative proceedings only. When any criminal offence takes place inside the House and an MLA or some MLAs are assaulted by their rivals, the victims have the right to lodge complaints with police,” Justice Dipankar Dutta said.

He cited a nine-judge bench judgment of the Supreme Court in 1965 while passing his order. Since today’s judgment was awaiting the judge’s signature, the copy of the order was not released today. But Justice Dutta read out the operative portion.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who was vocal on the powers of the legislature when he presided over Parliament’s lower House, said the judgment would be “scanned” in the future.

“A judge has passed his order…. What would happen if anyone is killed inside Parliament? It is a matter to watch out for. Let us observe what happens after the passing of such an order,” Chatterjee told The Telegraph.

The judgment was passed on a petition filed by Gouranga Chatterjee, the CPM MLA from Pandabeshwar in Burdwan, who was allegedly beaten up by Trinamul Congress MLAs on the floor of the House on December 11.

The alleged assault took place during a melee that followed Speaker Biman Banerjee’s refusal to allow an adjournment motion by the Left on the “menace” of chit funds. Despite several complaints, Banerjee declined to order a probe or initiate action against the alleged perpetrators, according to Gouranga’s complaint.

Advocate-general Bimal Chatterjee had contended that Article 212 of the Constitution had given the Speaker the prime authority to initiate a criminal complaint with the police for any untoward incident inside the House.

But Justice Dutta said: “People’s representatives have the right to go to the police.”

In his petition, the MLA had also alleged that doctors at SSKM Hospital, where he was taken for treatment, neglected his complaints of severe pain in the head and released him after a brief treatment.

However, later he was diagnosed with a serious head injury at a private nursing home, Gouranga said and sought action against SSKM officials. The judge allowed Gouranga to move a consumer court to demand compensation from the hospital for negligence, if any.

Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, the lawyer appearing for Gouranga, referred to two separate cases initiated in 1963 in the high court in Uttar Pradesh, one by the then chief minister against the Speaker and the other by the Speaker against the chief minister. Both the petitioners had claimed primacy inside the Assembly.

The high court had sent the cases to the Supreme Court and the then President of the country had also sent a reference. “In 1965, the bench in its judgment said that the Speaker had primacy only in case of legislative proceedings,” Bhattacharyya said.