PUCL, former MP Subhashini Ali, and journalist NN Mishra have filed an intervention petition before the Supreme Court in a case examining the scope of legislative privileges under Articles 105 and 194 of the Constitution. The plea argues that the outcome will have implications beyond the immediate parties, touching on whether parliamentary privilege can shield legislators from judicial scrutiny for actions taken outside the protected sphere of legislative proceedings.

Legislative privilege under Articles 105 (Parliament) and 194 (State Legislatures) grants members immunity from court proceedings for anything said or any vote cast inside the House. The foundational principle is that Parliament must function without external interference — courts cannot question what a member says in debate. However, the boundary of this immunity has been contested since the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in P.V. Narasimha Rao v. State (1998), where a 3:2 majority held that bribery to vote in the House was protected by privilege — a ruling widely criticised as conflating the act of voting with the corrupt agreement preceding it.

The current proceedings likely revisit that boundary. The core legal question is: does privilege protect only the legislative act itself (speech, vote), or does it extend to the conduct surrounding that act (accepting a bribe, making a deal)? A larger bench subsequently indicated Narasimha Rao deserved reconsideration.

For CLAT PG aspirants, the examiner will test whether you understand that privilege is functional, not personal — it protects the function of legislating, not the legislator as an individual. The test the Court applies is: was the impugned act an integral part of the legislative process? If the act (e.g., bribery) precedes or exists independently of the legislative act, privilege does not attach. This distinction — between the act and its surrounding conduct — is the precise line examiners probe.