Jaya Bachchan was first victim of office of profit saga

The office of profit controversy now engulfing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi had first seen Samajwadi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan losing her membership of the Upper House.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and industrialist Anil Ambani also faced complaints of holding office of profit when they were lawmakers.

While Gandhi and Ambani resigned from the posts before the Election Commission took a decision on complaints, those against Pawar and Patnaik were rejected by the poll body.
According to Article 102 (1)(a) of the Constitution, a person shall be disqualified as MP for holding any office of profit under the government of India or the government of any state, other than an office declared by Parliament by law not to disqualify its holder.

Article 191(1)(a) has a similar provision for the members of state assemblies. Gandhi resigned from her Lok Sabha membership in 2006 while the EC was considering a petition against her arguing that the chairpersonship of National Advisory Council (NAC) she was holding was office of profit.

Congress leaders then said that they did not do due diligence by not bringing an amendment to the office of profit law to seek exclusion of NAC chairmanship from it. Gandhi resigned and was re-elected and later the then UPA government brought in an amendment to exclude NAC chairmanship from the office of profit list. The then Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee also could have landed in trouble but the amendment helped him save his membership. Bachchan lost her seat after the EC found that she was holding the post of Chairperson of Uttar Pradesh Film Development Corporation, which was an office of profit.

Ambani did not wait for the EC decision on a complaint against him for being a member of the UP Development Council. Another high profile case was that of Pawar, who was then the chief of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).