On Sunday, when P.A. Sangma sought to scuttle the chances of his rival Pranab Mukherjee, becoming the next President, he had evidently not read the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Act, 2006, closely.
Interestingly, shortly after Congress president Sonia Gandhi resigned as MP from Rae Bareli in 2006 for holding what the Opposition described as an office of profit — chairpersonship of the National Advisory Council — Jaya Bachchan was disqualified as MP (of the Samajwadi Party) for being the chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council. The law was amended, and these two positions were included in the list of those exempt from the tag, ‘Office of Profit.’
But so was the chairman of the “Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta”: indeed, it is the fourth on a fresh list of 55 slots that were included at the time. In short, from 2006, the post has no longer been deemed an office of profit.
