RANCHI, Aug 11: The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-S has decided not to join the Rabri Devi cabinet and has instead demanded transfer of nine more departments to the Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council (JAAC).

The decision was taken at the central committee meeting of the Party here last night, JMM-S vice-president and JAAC vice-chairman Suraj Mandal informed newsmen here on Monday.

``We somehow felt that joining the Rashtriya Janata Dal Government in the State would restrict our scope of carrying out development programmes specially meant for this region and that we could be more effective if we confined our functions within the periphery of the 18 Jharkhand districts,'' he said.

The departments demanded instead of berths in the RJD cabinet are higher education, labour, cooperative, public relations, science and technology, electricity, irrigation and transport, Mandal said.

The JMM-S central committee also discussed possible ways to mount pressure on the Central Government for creation of a separate `Jharkhand' and demanded announcement of statehood for the region by the Prime Minister from the ramparts of the red fort on August 15.

``If the Central Government fails to do so on August 15 the Party's central committee will have a meeting on August 16 to finalise its strategy for an intense agitation demanding statehood for Jharkhand,'' Mandal said.

He expressed his sense of gratitude towards former Chief Minister Laloo Prasad for passing a resolution in the Assembly recommending creation of a separate Jharkhand state.

``It was a historic step,'' he said.

MPs bribery case

Senior counsel in the JMM bribery case for former prime minister P V Narsimha Rao, R K Anand, argued with Delhi High Court today saying the Indian Constitution provided for immunity to MPs, MLAs and ministers from any court action on their conduct inside Parliament or State Assemblies, including voting. A single-judge bench was hearing arguments on the revision petitions filed by Rao and the other accused against the designated court's order to frame charges against them in the case.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.