NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Saturday rejected President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's call for reconsideration of the office-of-profit Bill, officially known as the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill, 2006. The Bill will be placed unchanged before both Houses next week. Soon after the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met the President to apprise him of the Government's decision.

Briefing mediapersons later, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said the Bill with the President's message and the Government's motion responding to it would first be placed in the Rajya Sabha on July 25.

Though Parliament opens for the monsoon session on Monday, the issue can be referred to the Rajya Sabha only on Tuesday as the House will be adjourned after obituary references.

To a question, Mr. Dasmunsi said political parties would get a chance to air their views during the discussion. The Government would make its position clear through the motion.

The Bill was passed in mid-May, and the President returned it within a fortnight invoking Article 111 of the Constitution. Asking Parliament to reconsider it, he wanted both Houses to look into the legal propriety of the applicability of the Bill with retrospective effect. Mr. Kalam said the Bill's focus should be on evolving a criterion, which would be just, fair and reasonable, and applied across all States and Union Territories.

The President wanted Parliament to study the implications of including the offices over which petitions for disqualification were already under process by the competent authority as per Article 102.

The Bill seeks to exempt 55 posts and the office of chairperson of the National Advisory Council from the purview of office-of-profit. While the National Democratic Alliance opposed the Bill, there was across-the-floor unanimity on the need to define what constituted an "office-of-profit."

Responding to the near-unanimous demand for an all-party committee to define "office of profit" and take a fresh look at Article 102 on disqualification, Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj, during a discussion in the Lok Sabha, said the Government was open to such a suggestion. "If the House wants to amend the Constitution, it can be done," he said.

The Bill "is a limited measure" to prevent disqualification of some MPs occupying posts that could be termed "office of profit.

An all-party panel is under consideration. Sources said a final decision would be taken after the discussion in Parliament, which would decide on the structure of the committee.

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