Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned on Monday after paying tributes to ex-Sports and Youth Affairs minister Sunil Dutt and two sitting members who died during the inter-session period.
Both the Houses mourned the passing away of Dutt, Lok Sabha member and veteran Communist Party of India leader P K Vasudevan Nair, Communist Party-Marxist member from Rajya Sabha Biplab Dasgupta and several former members.
The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha also condemned the bomb blasts in London and Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt resulting in the deaths of a large number of people.
In the Lok Sabha, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee recalled the contribution of sitting members, Dutt and Nair, to the nation and society at large.
Describing Dutt as a multi-faceted personality with a 'novel soul with a vision', Chatterjee said he had worked for peace and communal harmony, besides working for the welfare of cancer patients and spastics.
Dutt rose in the film world as a versatile actor, producer and director, winning several international and national awards, he said.
He also undertook a march from Mumbai to Amritsar for peace in Punjab and another from Hiroshima to Nagasaki for world peace, the speaker said.
Condoling the death of veteran communist leader Nair, Chatterjee said he was elected to 2nd, 3rd and 4th Lok Sabha besides the current one and was the chief minister of Kerala from October 1978 to October 1979.
Describing Nair as a 'respectable leader of modern Kerala' and a leading figure of the Left movement, the speaker said Nair with his strong commitment to the cause of the poor and the deprived stood apart for his 'impeccable integrity'.
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee also turned 76 on Monday. Leader of the house and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and leader of the opposition Lal Kishenchand Advani greeted him on his birthday wishing him a long life.
Chatterjee said he was extremely grateful to them and needed their support.
In the Rajya Sabha, chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat said Dutt had always stood for probity in public life and left an indelible mark because of his deep humanism and fight for communal harmony and social cohesion.
"I can never forget the moment when along with heart- rending news of his sad demise, I received a letter from him, which he had written just a day before his death," he said.
After reading media reports about Shekhawat's contribution for the marriage of the daughter of a widow whose husband had donated all his organs before his death, Dutt also enclosed a cheque of Rs 25,000 with the letter.
"Even this last act of his was one of sublime kindness; indeed throughout his life he was dedicated to the service of the needy and the poor," Shekhawat said.
