PTI
 
New Delhi, Aug 19: Ending a fortnight-long suspense, President A P J Abdul Kalam on Friday gave his assent to the controversial re-enacted law on Office of Profit a day after Parliament approved setting up of a Joint Committee to define what constitutes such an office.

The President has given his assent to the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill, 2006, a Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesman said on the legislation that was sent to Kalam on August 1, 2006 after Parliament re-enacted it without any changes.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who is also Chairperson of the Santiniketan-Sriniketan Development Board, and SP MP Amar Singh, who is Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Industrial Development Council, are among the 40 MPs against whom disqualification petitions are pending on the ground they hold offices of profit.

The Presidential assent to the law with retrospective effect is expected to provide relief to these MPs.

The original bill passed in May at the height of the controversy over disqualification of Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan was returned by the President with a suggestion to Parliament that there was need for a comprehensive and generic criteria for defining Office of Profit.

Under the Constitution, a bill sent to the President for a second time, has to be given assent to by him but there is no deadline set for it.

The government was worried about what it thought was a delay in the assent for the re-enacted legislation and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had an unscheduled meeting with the President on Tuesday apparently seeking early clearance of the bill.

While returning the first bill, the President had wanted a uniform law applicable in all the States. Parliament not making any changes in the bill appeared to have been the cause for the President's reservations over giving assent to it. The Prime Minister is understood to have convinced him that there was need for early assent to it in view of the legal complications facing those against whom disqualification petitions were pending. The Joint Committee is believed to be a compromise in this situation.

In an apparent attempt to address the President's concerns, the government moved a motion in Lok Sabha on Thursday to set up a 15-member Joint Committee of Parliament to examine the constitutional and legal position relating to Office of Profit.

The formation of the committee was approved by the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

The terms of reference of the committee shall be to suggest a comprehensive definition of Office of Profit in the context of settled interpretation of the expression "Office of Profit" in Article 102 of the Constitution and the underlying Constitutional principles therein.

The committee, comprising 10 members of the Lok Sabha and five from the Rajya Sabha, would recommend the evaluation of generic and comprehensive criteria which are just, fair and reasonable and can be applied to all states.