Speaker flays Surendran for cheap publicity

Parliament speaker nails Surendran for having personal interest in a motion being brought before the question and answer session.

KUALA LUMPUR: Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia mocked that Padang Serai MP N Surendran might have wanted to promote himself due to personal interest in bringing up a petition in the House on Tuesday.

Surendran’s aggression in pushing the petition to be debated before the question and answer session sparked an argument between him and Pandikar that eventually led to his expulsion from the House.

The petition was made on behalf of the family of custodial death victim P Karuna Nithi and Surendran is representing them as their legal counsel.

Surendran insists that it is the rightful procedure for the House to hear a petition before the Q&A session, and further criticised Pandikar as being a dictator for throwing him out.

Commenting on the remarks, Pandikar said one must take into account that Surendran might have some “financial interests” in bring up the petition.

“In my opinion, he is doing it because of personal agenda to get media coverage and to be a hero.

“He wants to show the family that he is brave, he dares to go against the speaker until he got thrown out of the House. This might have been his agenda,” he told a media conference today.

Pandikar then repeated his yesterday’s statement that it is not the duty of a speaker to discuss a petition that infringes the jurisdiction of the government.

Surendran’s petition was to ask for the inquest on Karuna Nithi to be scrapped since the post-mortem report revealed that the latter suffered 49 injury marks while in police custody.

Pandikar said since there is still a channel to identify the cause of his death, there is no necessity for parliament to discuss the subject.

“In certain countries like India, petition is only raised in parliament if there is no other remedy available,” he said.