Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party MP Babubhai Katara, involved in the infamous human trafficking case, is in double trouble and his membership of the Lok Sabha is in real danger.
The Lok Sabha committee headed by senior Congress MP V Kishore Chandra Deo to inquire into misconduct of members has recommended expulsion of Katara, holding that "he needs to be meted out the severest of punishments".
"Katara has committed an act of grave misconduct as well as contempt of the committee and of the House, which has hreatened to erode the credibility of Parliament as an institution," the panel said in its report presented in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
The JP has already sought his expulsion for voting against the party line and in favour of the government during the July 22 trust vote.
The committee was entrusted with the task by Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee sometime after the MP was caught at the Delhi airport in April 2007 allegedly trying to illegally take a woman and a boy abroad on the passports of his wife and son.
"Making a fake diplomatic passport in his wife's name can have no motive other than to indulge in human trafficking," it said.
The committee held that the conduct of Katara, MP from Dahod (SC) seat from Gujarat, has "in fact brought disrepute and maligned the image of the entire fraternity of legislators".
Lamenting that Katara's conduct was a "far cry from the virtues" expected of MPs, the report said, "To say that the conduct of Katara was unbecoming, would be putting it rather too mildly."
The committee pointed out that Katara was given three opportunities to appear before it for giving his oral evidence, but he did not come, citing health grounds.
Meanwhile, Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary laid a copy of the decisions taken against five members, who were disqualified under the anti-defection law.
Those disqualified by the speaker are Kuldeep Bishnoi, Jaiprakash and S P Singh Baghel, Ram Swaroop Prasad and H T Sanglina.
Most of them were axed for voting against their arty line during the July 22 trust vote.
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