The Hindu Business Line : PROFITING FROM OFFICE

The Government has set the ball rolling to resolve the vexatious question of what functionaries would need to be kept outside the purview of the constitutional bar on holding `offices of profit' with the launch of a consultation process with various political parties. It is safe to say that there exists a broad political consensus on the need for a liberal framework that exempts certain offices from this onerous provision. Though some shrewd bargaining may be on, a new liberal law on the subject itself is sure to enjoy a smooth passage through Parliament. After all, chairmanships of quasi governmental organisations are time-tested rewards dished out by ruling parties/combines to those legislative supporters not accommodated with ministerial berths. It is this system of patronage that is under threat with the latest Election Commission ruling on Jaya Bachchan's chairmanship of the UP Film Development Council rather than the status of Ms Sonia Gandhi as a member of the Lok Sabha.

The concept of a National Advisory Council, under the chairmanship of Ms Sonia Gandhi, was principally wrong on moral grounds and it was also fraught with political risks, as subsequent events have demonstrated. It sought to put in place an institutional framework for cementing what is essentially a moral authority exerted by Ms Sonia Gandhi on the Congress-led alliance at the Centre. The institutionalising of official briefings of the Council by various ministries and departments was to reinforce the perception that in Ms Sonia Gandhi, the organisational and the legislative wings of the Congress party had fused into one in spirit if not in letter. Whether that puts Ms Sonia Gandhi in a position similar to that of a chairman of a state industrial development corporation or an electricity board — offices that have traditionally conferred on the titular head immense opportunities for distribution of largesse for the favoured few — as to warrant her disqualification is debatable.

A larger point needs to be made. The Legislative wing of the state has over the years abdicated the twin roles of setting the policy agenda for the Executive on its own and where the latter proposes one, subjecting it to the closest scrutiny. Legislation enacted by the representatives of the people far from circumscribing Executive action through an elaborate detailing of possible situations and the response under each, has ended up leaving everything to the latter with not even the cursory post facto scrutiny. In a milieu of enormous discretionary exercise of power and minimal legislative oversight, is it any surprise that all offices have come to be regarded as sources enormous personal profits?