New Delhi: A Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Act, 2006 exempting 45 offices from the purview of disqualification.

Dinesh Trivedi, who has filed this petition through counsel P.H. Parekh, sought a declaration that the Act notified on August 18, the same day on which President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gave his assent, was unconstitutional.

The petitioner said the impugned Act was wholly arbitrary and discriminatory. He said that as admitted in the statement of objects and reasons, the Act had been passed with retrospective effect solely to protect about 40 sittings MPs, who were facing disqualification proceedings before the Election Commission.

He said the Bill was passed for the second time in undue haste without seriously addressing any of the concerns raised by the President in his message while returning the Bill on May 31. He said the Joint Committee of Parliament on office of profit comprised 10 Lok Sabha MPs and five Rajya Sabha MPs. In the past, before an "office of profit" was exempted from the rigour of Article 102 (1) (a) (disqualification for holding office of profit), the same was referred to the Joint Committee for its report on whether the office referred to was an office of profit and whether or not exemption should be granted. This statutory practice was not followed in the present case and it was given a complete go-by before the passing of the impugned law.

"Enacted in self-interest"

He submitted that before resorting to the wholesale exemption of 45 offices of profit, and that too with retrospective effect, the existing Joint Committee should have been asked to look into each one of the offices of profit in question as well as to consider the concerns expressed by the President.

He said the Act had been enacted in self-interest and not public interest and had nullified the objective and principle underlying Article 102 (1) (a) of the Constitution.

The petitioner sought a direction to declare the Act unconstitutional and void and an interim stay of its operation. In the alternative, he sought a direction to stay the retrospective operation of the Act; that is the impugned Act would not affect the disqualification proceedings pending before the Election Commission.

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