The Rajya Sabha on Monday witnessed heated exchanges over the alleged misuse of central investigating agencies against Opposition politicians, setting up a debate on how and to what extent members need to back up their claims in Parliament.

Chair person Jagdeep Dhankhar asked members to provide authentic documents to support any claims they made during any discussion. Aam Admi Party member Sanjay Singh had alleged during Zero Hour that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had conducted 3,000 raids against Opposition politicians in the last eight years while only 23 of those raided had been convicted.

Ruling party members protested loudly, with leader of the House Piyush Goyal saying Singh’s figures were incorrect. “There are a lot of websites and social media platforms which give many things which are not substantiated by facts and figures.

A senior member says 3,000 raids on political people. This is false information,” Goyal said. Singh said he had quoted the figures from a reply in Parliament given to a question from Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena. Dhankhar said: “You cannot give out facts that are not substantiated. Anything spoken here has to be indicated with precision and ownership. I will call a member to put relevant record(s) on the table. If he does not... that will be breach of privilege.” He added: “We have to believe in (the) sanctity of documents. I need legally admissible documentation.”

Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge said that members usually draw their information from parliamentary questions and articles published in newspapers and periodicals. Sometimes they cite reported speeches by politicians.

Dhankhar said he would call a meeting of the floor leaders and smaller parties on Tuesday to discuss a mechanism to ensure that members presented valid and authentic information in their speeches. The figure of 3,000 that Singh had cited refers to the total number of searches and recorded cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) since 2014, and not specifically to matters involving Opposition leaders. On July 26 this year, Chaturvedi had asked whether ED raids — under the PMLA that came into force on July 1, 2005 — had gone up by almost 90 per cent since 2014.

In his reply, junior finance minister Pankaj Chaudhary had said that between 2004-05 and 2013-14, “small number of searches (112) were carried out”. During this period, trial courts did not convict any PMLA accused. Between 2014-15 and 2021-22, some 3,010 searches were conducted, the reply said.

“In order to dispose of pending investigation in old cases and to complete investigation in new cases in time-bound manner under the PMLA, 3,010 searches were conducted during the last eight years which resulted in attachment of proceeds of crime of Rs 99,356 crore (approx), filing of prosecution complaint in 888 cases and conviction of 23 accused persons/ entities & confiscation of proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 869.31 crore,” the reply said.

It has been a long-established parliamentary practice for members to authenticate documents, especially if it was a contentious one and if their submission on a subject relied wholly on it, or if it was a media report. Successive presiding officers in both Houses have ruled that members should authenticate documents and submit them to the House, taking responsibility for what they have said.