Sir, I have no intention to go into the validity of the constitutional issues connected with this Bill. Learned lawyers by their profession, but who are eminent Members of this House, in their own capacity as Members, have produced the arguments for and against.
I had no intention to go even into the moral issues involved. But, after listening to the esteemed leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the House, I am tempted to speak only on the moral issues. He seems to be inventing arguments in support of Members of Parliament occupying offices of profit. But he forgets that the very basic principle of democracy, which wepractice in our country under our Constitution, is, the separation of powers. He must have been a student of Politics. I know that he was a student of Politics and he must have learned the textbooks of Montesqueue about Separation of Powers, and I am astonished to hear him say that today you can save money on TA by appointing somebody as Chairman of the Corporation or you could nominate a person, for convenience sake, to hold two or three posts. If we accept that as a theory in democratic administration, it will destroy democracy in our country, because our democracy is based on the principle that Executive, Judiciary and Legislature should function in their respective spheres, without one being able to show favour or patronage to anyone else and without one interfering with the jurisdiction and responsibilities of the other. If we question these fundamentals, then we will have to go in for a new Constitution! With this Constitution that we have adopted, I am afraid, we cannot accept the basic principle, which has been used by Mr. Yechury to support this Bill.
I am not against this Bill. But I wish to point out that, at least, we must resolve ourselves, take a resolution on this occasion among ourselves, that we will rectify the mistakes that had been committed in the name of creating more and more offices of profit. There has to be a legislation like the Act of 1959, because in a Parliamentary democracy, we have to exempt the Ministers, Leaders of Opposition, Whips and Chief Whips, and exempt them from the operation of this. There may be a justification to exempt a few more categories of people in our system of democracy and give them the right to continue in such offices. But the intention of Article 102-1(a) was that they should give exemptions. The rule is that you cannot occupy executive posts while you are a Member of Parliament or a Member of the Legislature.