New Delhi, May 31
With the prospect of the disqualification of MPs looming large in the wake of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam returning the Office of Profit Bill for the reconsideration of Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met the First Citizen this evening and articulated the UPA government’s stand on the concerns expressed by him.
Rashtrapati Bhavan said Dr Singh’s discussion with Dr Kalam lasted 30 minutes and the two leaders discussed “current issues of national importance.”
The government is, meanwhile, putting up a brave front and undertaking a damage control exercise to address the apprehensions of the President. It is in this context that the President-Prime Minister interface assumes significance.
What Dr Kalam finds worrisome is the absence of a defined transparent criteria and whether a proposed law can take effect from 1959, besides why there could not be a comprehensive Bill for all states.
While taking serious note of Rashtrapati Bhavan’s perceived lacunae in the legislative measure adopted by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha at a specially convened Budget Session of Parliament which concluded on May 24, the Prime Minister is believed to have discussed with Dr Kalam the options and probable amendments to the Bill.
The Cabinet is scheduled to meet here tomorrow to discuss the specific issues thrown up by Dr Kalam.
Earlier, Union Law and Justice Minister H.R. Bhardwaj told mediapersons that there was no lacunae in the Bill and as the President had returned it, “we would respectfully reconsider it.”
He dismissed suggestions that it was a setback to the government. He said this was part of the democratic process which had inbuilt checks and balances.
He explained that if Parliament approved the legislative measure in its present form after reconsideration, the President would have to give his assent.
Stressing that there could not be a uniform law in this regard for the country, he said state governments had their own preferences and prerogative of exempting any office or including any one from the list of Office of Profit. He claimed that the Bill would pass judicial scrutiny.
He found nothing untoward in
giving effect to a law retrospectively. “It is a valid concept in law.” Meanwhile, several MPs, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, are again caught in the vortex of the controversy, with the NDA taking up the matter with the EC.Officials of the EC said they would go ahead with the process of considering the disqualification petitions referred to it by the President and Governors.
“We are going ahead and have not slowed down. Wherever we are getting information we are proceeding,” they stressed. As the process involved quasi judicial proceedings, the EC was fixing personal hearings as well, they added.
