New Delhi (PTI): The Centre on Tuesday had to face some tough time in the Supreme Court which questioned its motive behind bringing an amendment to the Office of Profit law, allegedly for protecting some individuals from being disqualified from the membership of Parliament.

"It is the office which is exempted not its holder (under the law). So when you are exempting office of one development council, then similar other offices should also be exempted. You have virtually exempted the holder but not the office," a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said.

"Why is there a discrimination between different councils. Why only the Tripura Khadi Board has been exempted when every state has such a board," the Bench also comprising Justices R V Raveendran and J L Panchal observed.

The Centre, however, defended itself by contending that it was a ongoing exercise in which more amendments would be made to the law to exclude more offices from the Office of Profit list.

"This is an ongoing legislation and exercise. A joint committee comprising eminent persons has been appointed to look into office of profit issue and it is looking to evolve criteria on which it could be applied," Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium said.

"The parliament is alive to the fact that the issue is to be resolved so that there is uniformity. It is an ongoing process and it does not mean that the first stage of exempting 55 offices is bad," he further contended.

At that stage the bench said, "You mean to say that exempting 55 offices is like temporary injunction till the final order."

The Court also questioned the application of the amendment with retrospective effect and said, "This is the first time that it has been done so. Show us any case where it was done earlier."