Giving a clean chit to Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) has stated that Sonia Gandhi had not desecrated the norms of ‘Office of Profit’ law by holding the chair of National Advisory Council (NAC) two years ago.
The clarification regarding the law came after two years when JPC was constituted under the chairmanship of Congress MP Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi for defining the compressive law and investigating the case of Sonia Gandhi for alleged violation.
Identifying the ‘Advisory Office’ as a non-profit office, JPC stated that it comes under the ‘exception’ category of profit making offices under which three categories have defined: First, the ministerial posts in the Union or State governments; second, an office in Parliament or a State legislature such as leader of opposition, chief whip, parliamentary party leader, etc; and third, the advisory offices in the Union or States.
Giving the definition of ‘Advisory Office’ JPC defined, ‘Any office that is associated with purely giving counsel or recommendation on any particular subject/policy, in respect of any matter of public importance/interest and for with there is no procedure of salary or remuneration except compensatory allowance is known as ‘Advisory Office’ or with different name.’
Thus, in short, Sonia Gandhi had not hold the office of profits in any way, JPC stated.
Moreover, JPC has also described the comprehensive definitions of the law that stated that all offices under the government of India and the States would be offices of profit, except ministerial or legislative positions.
Earlier in 2006, the controversy evolved when Jaya Bachchan, the Samajwadi party MP in Rajya Sabha had been expelled from her position as she was holding an office of profit by being head of the Film Development Council in Uttar Pradesh simultaneously.
After this, a storm of controversy emerged and a petition had been filed to then President A P J Abdul Kalam against all MPs including Sonia Gandhi who were holding the positions of several offices concurrently.
In the beginning of contention, Sonia Gandhi had resigned from the chairmanship of Advisory Committee and Member of Parliament as well. She had also resigned from all the positions of the office relating to Nehru-Gandhi trusts that have been receiving several government funds.
Later she fought from the same constituency ‘Rae Bareli’ and won the seat by huge margin.
Now the JPC has suggested the government to make amendment in Article 102(1) 9(a) that regulates the matter.
The committee was comprised by the panel of eminent jurists Ram Jethmalani, Arun Jaitley, Abhishek Singhvi and Virendra Bhatia as well as Members of Parliament, Sitaram Yechury of CPI (M) and V Kishore Chandra Deo of Congress.
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