SC order on tainted netas may spawn new govt guidelines
NEW DELHI: The July 10 Supreme Court judgment mandating the immediate disqualification of convicted lawmakers, which has been at the centre stage of country’s politics for the last two months, may require fresh guidelines from the government to deal with the new situation.
The disqualification of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad and veteran Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rashid Masood, both of whom are now in jail, have posed a new challenge to the government, Parliament and Election Commission officials.
Following many rounds of confabulations on the tricky issue of how to proceed on the immediate disqualification, the Lok Sabha secretariat referred the matter to the law ministry, which in turned has sought the opinion of the attorney general.
The question bothering officials is who would take the final decision on disqualification and under which rules. With the SC having struck down the provision from the Representation of the People Act, which allowed convicted MPS/MLAS to continue till the final disposal of their appeals, such cases rarely bothered the concerned authorities.
Officials point towards the need of fresh guidelines since till now routine cases on disqualification pertained to complaints against MPS/MLAS holding offices of profit.
Such complaints were made to the President who referred these to the EC.
In the cases of Lalu and Masood, however, the view emerging is that there is no need of making any reference to the President. “The SC judgment is the law of the land today. It clearly states that disqualification starts from the very date of conviction by the court. This means there is no need even to wait for the sentencing,” a highly placed source said.
“In the instant cases, the presiding officers of respective Houses or state assemblies merely need to inform the EC about the seat of a convicted lawmaker having fallen vacant. All other things are merely technical debates and mean nothing,” said the source.