Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Office of profit

The article "Office of profit: the wages of neglect" (May 17) is not only most perceptive but also well-timed. Removal by law of disqualifications should have concentrated on "offices" and not on persons who held them. The lack of an objective assessment of "offices" that are not to be treated as "offices of profit," and at the same time proposing that the new law will operate retrospectively, gives an impression to all right-thinking persons that the representatives of the people, cutting across party lines, are merely looking after themselves: translating into law an attitude of "so-long-as I'm-all-right Jack."

This is not law making as envisaged in our Constitution. In the field of removal of disqualifications, there is ample room for legislative discretion but not for legislative patronage — aimed only to relieve undoubtedly good persons of the embarrassment of having fallen foul of the law. "Howsoever high you be, the law is above you."

Fali S. Nariman,
New Delhi

So our MPs have passed the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill. When it comes to saving themselves, they introduce, discuss and pass a bill in utmost hurry. The Women's Reservation Bill, on the other hand, has been hanging fire since 1996. The office of profit issue bears testimony to the selflessness of our politicians.

Anuradha Amanchy,
Chennai

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