For­mer house speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed has ex­pressed con­cern over the grow­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion that par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dures are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing used as po­lit­i­cal weapons rather than tools for sub­stan­tive de­bate and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Mo­hammed made the com­ment while re­spond­ing to the Op­po­si­tion’s un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt to re­fer House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh to Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

The mo­tion, filed by Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les on May 8, ac­cused the House Speak­er of fail­ing to de­clare a po­ten­tial con­flict of in­ter­est linked to his pre­vi­ous le­gal work in­volv­ing clients in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor.