The Hindu Business Line : Nobody expects Ministers to be saints

THE abrupt end that the tainted issue met with at the apex court last week was far from dainty. Nobody expected Ministers to be saints; but to know that the highest court was not the proper forum to deal with the matter should have made a few people faint. Because it was always thought you could take any pressing issue, be it a debate on a murderer's innocence or a monument's protection, be it cricket-playing or cigarette-smoking.

Perhaps the image that we've cherished is of a forum that prided itself on a take-no-prisoners attitude, carrying reason right up to its conclusions, not holding back mandate for action despite forceful arguments to the contrary. It was, after all, a painted image that got frayed days ago, and we now see gaping holes wherefrom peep criminals in anointed chairs.

As reported, Parliament would discuss the issue of inclusion of charge-sheeted persons, though none is wiser asking `when', because the answer is that the Government would `soon' initiate a debate in the House on the issue. When the petitioner's counsel had pleaded for fixing a time schedule for Parliament to discuss the matter, the Bench observed, "We cannot regulate the proceedings of the House."

The Government has explained that the only reason why discussion on tainted topic did not take place in the last session of Parliament was because members of the Opposition disrupted the session. For a country of 100 crore plus that has got used to bedlam in Parliament leading to frequent walkouts and adjournments that are as predictable as slapstick comedies, not to speak of noisy exchanges and tumultuous confusion sneaking onto our TVs, adding to our own domestic problems, the promise of undisrupted discussion looks like a drab joke.

One may dismiss any hope on that front as too `hypothetical,' as much as it is hypothetical to wonder if a person accused of waging a war against the nation can become a Member of Parliament (MP) and a Minister during the pendency of the case. Rather than engage in such larger questions, what probably suits the Lilliputians that we are is to endlessly wrangle over tax concessions and pettier problems. Let's accept that we aren't mature enough to toss these things in our heads, and so the posers are `premature'.

The Centre has said that there is no limitation or restriction in the Constitution to debar any MP being included in the Cabinet. We also learn that Article 75 of the Constitution doesn't stipulate as disqualification for a ministerial post `criminal proceedings pending against him'. Won't it be incorrect to read into the provisions of Article 75 such a disqualification when none existed, it is asked.

Once a person is an MP, he is entitled to be in the Council of Ministers if the PM so decides; well, that's what the nation is being told by the Government. Since you can't get angry with a soft-spoken Manmohan, the best course of action is to sympathise with his plight of having to play coalition politics by the perverse rules that govern the same.

Let me rewind to `Clause wise Discussion on the Draft Constitution' during the period November 15, 1948 to January 8, 1949 on www.dr-ambedkar.com. Prof K.T. Shah had proposed that no person who is convicted be appointed a Minister of the State.

Dr B. R. Ambedkar acknowledged the idea to be "no doubt very laudable", but queried, "whether we should introduce all these qualifications and disqualifications in the Constitution itself."

The site records Dr Ambedkar's response: "Is it not desirable, is it not sufficient that we should trust the Prime Minister, the Legislature and the public at large watching the actions of the Ministers and the actions of the Legislature to see that no such infamous thing is done by either of them? I think this is a case which may eminently be left to the good sense of the Prime Minister and to the good sense of the Legislature with the general public holding a watching brief upon them."

Moral, therefore, is that the general public can continue to hold a watching brief. But don't ask, "Upon whom?"

E&OE@TheHindu.co.in

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