New Delhi: It's Indian politics at its fickle best. After all the political pandemonium over office of profit and the entire sequence of events that followed Sonia's Gandhi's surprise resignation, all parties including the Left and the BJP have decided to kiss and make up.
But Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said that for now, the Government was considering neither a bill nor an ordinance for defining what constitutes an office of profit.
The Left and the BJP have demanded that Parliament be reconvened to discuss a bill that will define Office of Profit
The move come after heads started rolling post-Sonia's resignation.
The controversy claimed another head on Friday when Rajya Sabha MP Kapila Vatsyayan resigned from her post following in the footsteps of her party leader.
However Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Friday rejected demands for his resignation maintaining that he was not holding any office of profit nor violated any provisions of the Constitution.
"On mere baseless allegations and insinuations and on the basis of reckless tantrums of some disgruntled persons, I shall not not refuse to discharge my obligations as a Member of Parliament, to which my voters have sent me and also my duties as the Speaker of Lok Sabha, to which I have the honour of having been unanimously elected," he said in a statement.
The Speaker's remarks came on a day when the Election Commission said it has received a petition for his disqualification made by the Trinamul Congress, whose leader Mamata Banerjee has demanded his resignation like Sonia Gandhi did on Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday, within hours of Congress President Sonia Gandhi announcing her resignation as a Lok Sabha MP and as the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, the party's Rajya Sabha MP Karan Singh and party MP from Maharashtra, Gurudas Kamat, had put in their papers.
While Dr Karan Singh was accused of holding an office of profit as the Chairman of Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Vatsyayan faced a similar charge for holding the post of president of Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts.
The ripples were felt even down to the state levels with four Jammu & Kashmir MLAs resigning from chairmanships of various boards that they had been holding after the controversy on office of profit broke.
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Only last week, Vatsyayan was sworn in as member of the Rajya Sabha after her re-election to the Rajya Sabha.
Vatsyayan along with Shobhna Bharatiya, Vice-Chairperson and Editorial Director of the Hindustan Times and noted filmmaker Shyam Benegal were nominated to the Rajya Sabha recently.
Meanwhile, the Congress now says each MP's case is separate, and they can decide on their own if they want to resign.
Congress MP Subbarami Reddy has written a letter of appreciation to his party president over her resignation, but says he is not going to resign.
As many as 41 MPs from various parties allegedly hold offices of profit. They includes the speaker Somnath Chatterjee. The Left parties have already said their MPs will not resign.
Meanwhile, Congress' North-East Mumbai MP Gurudas Kamat, who had resigned as MP on Thursday, said he has shown what he feels as a Congress worker. "Now it is for the party president to decide," he said after submitting his papers to the party president in Delhi.
The Mumbai Regional Congress Committee president had announced he would resign as he holds an office of profit. He said he was emulating his party leader Sonia Gandhi.
But in Mumbai, he has said state MLAs who hold an office of profit need not resign.
The CPM has issued a statement saying the office of profit must be clarified. CPI-M leader Nilotpal Basu's name is also on the list of those accused of holding an office of profit.
"The post of NAC is not an office of profit," the party said, adding that the demand for the resignation of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is baseless and his holding the chairmanship of the Shantiniketan Board can't be termed as office of profit. The party called for a speedy resolution of the matter
Congress leader Karan Singh quit as Rajya Sabha MP on Thursday. Singh was accused of occupying an office of profit as he was the Chairman of Indian Council for Cultural Relations. He said his post could not be classified as an office of profit.
"All my life I have tried to uphold the highest standards of morality. I resigned earlier as a minister of aviation. I was a minister for 10 years and never drew any salary and lived in my own house. Although there's no doubt in my mind that ICCR is not an office of profit. So if it was'nt an office of profit for them, how could it be an office of profit for me?" he said.
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TOTAL RECALL: WHAT IS AN OFFICE OF PROFIT
Article 102 of the Constitution says a person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of either House of Parliament if he or she holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State, other than an office declared by Parliament by law not to disqualify its holder.
It says an MP by accepting an office of profit, theoretically could become subject to pressure by Executive. Hence, the law tries to ensure that there should be no conflict between the duties of a member of the legislature and his private interests.
An office of profit does not only refer to drawing remuneration. It can be applicable even in case of honorary duties.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN:
Madan Mohan Shukla, a Congress worker from Kanpur, first brought up the issue after he challenged Samajwadi MP Jaya Bachchan's Rajya Sabha membership on the ground that as the chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Corporation, she holds an office of profit and hence her's is a case fit for disqualification.
After examining the petition, the Election Commission forwarded Bachchan's disqualification to the President and he gave approval to the same, stripping the Samajwadi Party leader of her RS membership.
NEXT ON THE LINE OF FIRE:
There are more than 40 other MPs - including at least 10 each from the Congress and BJP and eight or nine from the Left - who are alleged to be holding offices of profit. The list reads like the who's who of the Indian political system and cuts across party lines.
Petitions have been filed for the disqualification of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee for being the Chairman of West Bengal Industrial Development Cooperation, Union Minister Subbarami Reddy for holding the post of Chairman of Tirupati Trust, Congress leader Karan Singh who heads the ICCR, Rajya Sabha member Kapila Vatsyayan, president of Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts and BJP's V K Malhotra, who is the President of Archery federation. Suresh Kalmadi is President of the Indian Olympic Committe.
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Some of the prominent MPs who allegedly hold offices of profit:
1. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, (chairs Sriniketan-Shantineketan Development Authority)
2. CPM MP Mohammad Salim, (heads the West Bengal Minority Development Corporation)
3. CPM MP Hannan Mullah (chief of the State Waqf Board)
4. BJP MP VK Malhotra, (former president of the All India Council of Sports).
5. Congress MP Karan Singh, (chairman of Indian Council of Cultural Relations)
6. Amar Singh, SP, Chairperson of UP Industrial Development Council
7. Kapila Vatsyayan, President of Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts
8. Union Minister T Subbarami Reddy, (Chairman, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams)
9. Laxman Sheth - Chairman of the Haldia Development Authority
10. Hannan Mollah - Chairman of Wakf Board
11. Md Salim - chairman of the West Bengal Minority Finance Development Corporation
12. Swadesh Chakrabarty - chairman of Hooghly River Bridge Commission
13. Amitava Nandi - vice-chairman of West Bengal Fisheries Development Corporation.
PAST EXPERIENCES:
> Ramakrishna Hedge was disqualified as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission in 1989 after Subramaniam Swamy complained to the President that the office was one of profit under the Union of India. The President disqualified him following a recommendation from the Election Commission.
> In 1982, AIADMK MP R Mohanrangam of was disqualified for holding the office of Special Representative of Tamil Nadu government in Delhi.
> Just two weeks back, Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan was disqualified from the Rajya Sabha for holding the post of chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Corporation.
> However, certain Mrs Kathuria allegedly got away with similar charges in 1967. Kathuria, a special government pleader from Rajasthan, was elected to the State Assembly. Her election was then challenged on the ground that she held an office of profit. But before the petition could be heard, the Rajasthan Legislature passed the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Members (Prevention of Disqualification) Act 1958, changing the nomenclature of the post with retrospective effect and she was saved from disqualification.
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