Declare Laloo, Sharma’s seats vacant at once, AG tells LS

Ending uncertainty about the procedure to notify the disqualification of convicted MPs Lalu Prasad Yadav and Jagdish Sharma, attorney general G E Vahanvati has told the Lok Sabha secretariat to immediately issue the notification declaring the seats vacant.

Giving his opinion for the second time in two weeks on the issue, Vahanvati made it clear that an MP stands disqualified the day he or she is convicted by a court and the notification announcing the vacancy of the seat should be done immediately. He warned that any delay in issuing notification could mean non-compliance with the Supreme Court order.

The country's top law officer has made it clear that the notification should be issued by the concerned House. In his earlier opinion, Vahanvati had said that the MP stands disqualified immediately. But his opinion was silent on the procedure to be followed for issuing the notification. The Lok Sabha secretariat had approached him again to clarify on the procedure.

On the other hand, the Rajya Sabha secretariat has already set in motion the process to declare vacant the seat of Congress MP Rasheed Masood, who was convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment in a graft case last month.

Vahanvati has made it clear that following the 10 July Supreme Court judgement mandating immediate disqualification of MPs / MLAs convicted for offences punishable with more than two years in jail, there is no scope for any "interpretation" based on a hypothetical future scenario.

"The question of conviction and sentence being stayed by a higher court while hearing an appeal is not relevant at this juncture. It can be addressed separately as and when that stage arises, at the moment immediate disqualification is the law and it can't be postponed for any reason," the attorney general said.

He was asked by the Lok Sabha secretariat to explain how to proceed if a higher court grants relief to Prasad and Sharma. The Supreme Court had on 10 July struck down a provision of the Representation of People Act that allows a convicted member of parliament or a state legislature to continue membership for a three-month period for filing an appeal to a higher court.

Following the order, Laloo Prasad, Sharma and Masood were the three sitting MPs who were convicted in corruption cases. The Lok Sabha secretariat was not clear on how to go about issuing the notification.