Despite NDA protest, LS passes office-of-profit Bill

An official amendment to the Bill exempting 10 more posts from office-of- profit definition, including chiefs of Dalit Sena and Bahujan Samaj Foundation held by Union minister Ramvilas Paswan and Mayawati, respectively, was accepted by the House.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who had resigned as NAC chairperson and Lok Sabha member on March 23 after the controversy arose, was not present in the House when the Bill was taken up for voting.

Significantly, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who faces a disqualification petition, was also not present to attend the proceedings on grounds of propriety as the Bill exempts Sriniketan-Santiniketan Development Authority held by him. The proceedings were chaired by Deputy Speaker C A Atwal.

The Bill will go to Rajya Sabha tomorrow.

After introducing the Bill, the Law Minister stated that the Government had to take this move failing which there was bound to be large-scale litigation and the likely vacation of seats in both Houses of Parliament thereby leading to a situation of holding bye-elections to fill up the vacancies.

Terming this as a ‘‘wasteful expenditure’’, he said this would have enforced unnecessary financial burden upon the nation.

Responding to the minister’s statement, and the ‘‘strange and bizarre’’ manner in which the list of posts was drawn out, BJP MP Menaka Gandhi while opposing the Bill said the entire exercise appeared to be to ‘‘save the office and keep the profit’’. She in fact pointed out that out of the list of 46 posts, close to 40 per cent were of offices in West Bengal.

In fact, Menaka Gandhi did not spare both the Speaker of the House and the chairperson of the NAC and said entire exercise of introducing such a Bill was being done on account of the chairperson of the NAC.

Shiv Sena’s Geethe and S S Dhindhsa of Shiromani Akali Dal, during their turn, opposed the Bill and Geethe wanted the Government to make public the names of the MPs who benefited from it.

Carrying on the debate, speakers from the Left parties, while supporting the Bill, strongly disagreed with the manner in which it was introduced. Basudeb Acharia of CPI(M), in particular, while stating that there is no clear definition of office-of-profit added that there was need to form a special committee that addressed these issues.

Mohan Singh of SP, while supporting the passing of the Bill also echoed similar views and added that Parliament cannot keep changing the law and therefore there was an urgent need to form a committee to look into the matter.

Interestingly, TDP MP Yerrannaidu, while supporting the Bill pointed out that the law was being amended with retrospective effect and that it was important to uphold the spirit of the Constitution.

JD(U)’s Prabhunath Singh, while pointing out that the entire exercise was being done to protect one person, was the only MP who wanted the Bill to expand the definition of the office-of-profit and include other activities as well.