A day after the Supreme Court ruled that no official sanction was needed to prosecute public servants for corruption, Lok Sabha MPs raised the issue of “interventions by the judiciary” and Speaker Somnath Chatterjee agreed to allow a discussion soon on the functioning of the legislature, judiciary and the executive.

The decision came after MPs, led by CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta, demanded a discussion in the form of a calling attention motion and Chatterjee sought the opinion of the House. With agreement on the need for a debate, the Speaker converted the motion into a discussion, to be taken up later.

Calling a written reply by Law Minister Hansraj Bharadwaj “a lame-duck statement”, Dasgupta said the Constitution warranted that the three organs of the state did not “act in an arbitrary way” but “of late, there have been interventions by the judiciary”.

“Even legislative intentions are being subjected to judicial scrutiny,” Dasgupta said, citing three instances — summons to the Speaker, a monitoring committee to oversee sealing in Delhi and the observation in a Tamil Nadu case that there should not be a strike.