In a welcome ruling, a Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice YK Sabharwal on Monday dismissed Jaya Bachchan’s petition challenging her disqualification as a Rajya Sabha MP. Throwing fresh light on the contentious issue, the Supreme Court held that an MP can be disqualified for holding an office of profit whether the person received any pecuniary gain or not, if it is proved that the office in question itself was one of profit. What was material was not if the person actually received any remuneration or pecuniary gain but whether the office he/she held was itself one of profit. This was the observation of the Bench headed by none other than the Chief Justice himself. By endorsing the Election Commission’s opinion on the subject, the court ruling will now help in clearing away some of the cobwebs. Up until now anyone with a legal opinion has interpreted it one way or the other so much so that the letter and spirit of the provision relating to office of profit faces the risk of being diminished under the nose of political compromise.
Since the tentacle of the ‘office of profit’ issue has not spared even the Nagaland Chief Minister and the Opposition Leader, the latest injunction of the Supreme Court should bring some worried looks particularly to the NPF Party led DAN Alliance given that the written complaint against Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio bears some similarity with Jaya Bachchan’s case. In this regard, the opinion of Nagaland’s Advocate General assuring of a safety net for the State’s politicians appears to be flawed and not in tune with the general principle behind the court ruling. At the end, it would therefore appear that it is not the learned Advocate General who can save the politicians but rather it is only by adhering to the letter and spirit of the constitution that people’s representatives will be spared the ignominy of having to be ejected from their esteemed chairs.
And since both the Nagaland Congress and the NPF have already petitioned the Election Commission demanding that Rio and Imkong respectively be disqualified, the matter now rests with the constitutional office of the EC. The latter on its part will have to carefully examine the petitions seeking disqualification of MPs and MLAs and maintain consistency as per the meaning of the law as in the case of Jaya Bachchan, whose membership of the Rajya Sabha was recommended for disqualification by the EC, which has now being upheld by the highest court in the land.
With the May 10 Parliament session all set to deliberate on the office of profit issue, how honestly members are able to resolve the matter remains to be seen. While it is accepted that greater clarity be given to the term ‘office of profit’, it should also be absolutely clear that politicians should not be allowed to circumvent the letter and spirit of the constitution. Hopefully, the court ruling on Jaya Bachchan’s case will put politicians in their right places. At the end of the day, the supremacy of the constitution will have to be upheld and not so much the whims and fancies of those who are making a mockery of it.
