NEW DELHI, 28 March 2006 — After party chief Sonia Gandhi’s resignation from the Parliament and chairperson of the National Advisory Council, Congress party is now focusing on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Delhi High Court yesterday issued a notice to BJP legislator V.K. Malhotra seeking his disqualification from Lok Sabha (lower house) on the grounds of his holding an “office-of-profit.
Malhotra is president of the All-India Council of Sports (AICS).
In a petition filed by Mohammed Kallimullah through advocate Manoj Ohri, Malhotra has been accused of falsely declaring at the time of filing nomination papers in March 2004 that he was not holding any “office-of-profit” as stipulated under the Constitution.
Arguing on behalf of the petitioner, senior counsel R.K. Anand, who had lost an election against Malhotra, said that there was no doubt about AICS presidency being an “office-of-profit.”
Malhotra should be disqualified under the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959, which bars legislators from holding for-profit positions.
Justice Vikramjit Sen issued notices to the Election Commission, the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs and Malhotra asking for their replies on the issue. The matter will come up for further hearing on April 5.
Anand and Malhotra were earlier in opposite camps as rivals to Lok Sabha elections from constituency of South Delhi. Malhotra defeated Anand in a parliamentary election.
Meanwhile, following Sonia’s resignation several legislators have quit their parliamentary seats, more than 40 complaints are still pending before the Election Commission demanding disqualification of legislators holding offices-o-profit.
In an apparent bid to stem this storm, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi was assigned the task of consulting political parties to form a consensus on amending the law. Less than a week ago, BJP trained its guns against the Congress for considering such a step to save Sonia, now the party has a different stand.
“The BJP is opposed to promulgation of an ordinance to leave some ‘offices-of profit’ from attracting disqualification of membership from Parliament. However, there is a need for defining an office of profit. We are not against a law being enacted by Parliament for this purpose,” senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said yesterday in.
Differences, however, prevail in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance camp on whether legislators should be permitted to hold certain offices of profit or not.
There is also deliberation on which offices should be classified as permissible for legislators. Opposing this stand, NDA Convener and Janata Party (United) President George Fernandes said that legislators should not face the pressure of another public office as they already were entrusted with a serious and important responsibility to the people.
