Prof MPs can draw salary: Panel

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, August 8

Members of Parliament, who are also professors at universities, can continue to draw salaries from the universities in question without attracting any provisions of the office of profit law.

The joint committee on offices of profit, in its report tabled in Parliament today, said the universities constituted under independent Acts of Parliament did not attract the provisions of the office of profit law. The committee, headed by BJP’s Satyapal Singh, was reviewing the question whether MPs Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD), Rakesh Sinha and Sukanta Majumdar of the Lok Sabha attracted the provisions of the office of profit since they were also engaged in teaching assignments at Delhi University and the University of Gour Banga in West Bengal, respectively.

While Majumdar is an assistant professor at the University of Gour Banga, Sinha and Manoj Kumar Jha teach at the University of Delhi. The panel said as per the Ministry of Law, the basic test to decide whether an office was an office of profit so as to disqualify a person as MP was to find out whether that office was under the Government of India or under a state government. In the current case, the University of Gour Banga and Delhi University had been constituted under the Gour Banga University Act, 2007, and the Delhi University Act, 1922, and were autonomous institutions.

The panel also noted the relevant UGC resolution providing that teachers who wish to continue teaching in the university and colleges after being elected or nominated as MPs or MLAs may be allowed to teach either by taking leave of absence or by applying to be “on duty” when Parliament is in session to attend to Parliament responsibilities.

Parliamentarians engaged in teaching too

• Panel on offices of profit tables report in Parliament
• Under review: Whether MPs Manoj Kumar Jha, Rakesh Sinha, Sukanta Majumdar attract provisions of the office of profit
• The MPs are also engaged in teaching assignments at Delhi University & the University of Gour Banga in West Bengal

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