Prez raises queries on lawmakers ordinance

Government tonight faced questions from President Pranab Mukherjee over the need for an ordinance on convicted lawmakers when he called three ministers seeking the rationale behind it while opposition parties stepped up their attack on the issue.
Voices of dissent also cropped up in Congress.
Mukherjee, to whom the ordinance cleared by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday, was referred called Home Minister and Leader of the House in Lok Sabha Sushilkumar Shinde, Law Minister Kapil Sibal and later Parliamentary Affairs minister Kamal Nath.
The ordinance seeks to negate the Supreme Court judgement striking down a provision in the electoral law that protected MPs and MLAs convicted for serious crimes from immediate disqualification.

The President is said to be not in a hurry to give his assent to the ordinance and reportedly wants the government to explain the need for an ordinance on an issue that has come under attack from mainstream opposition parties and civil society.
Mukherjee may take legal opinion from experts before he take a decision on whether to give assent.

Under the Constitution, the satisfaction of the President must be as to existence of circumstances which render it necessary for him to promulgate an ordinance. He can send the ordinance back to the government for re-consideration and shall act in accordance with the advice tendered by the government after such re-consideration.

There was no official word from the government on the discussions the ministers had with the President. But the government is believed to have conveyed the need for urgency because there could not be a vacuum in law.
There was a Bill in Parliament on the issue and since it could not be passed during the monsoon session, the government had to come out with this ordinance urgently, sources in the government said.
The ministers meetings with the President came after a high-level BJP delegation led by L K Advani met the President and urged him to refer the ordinance back to the government for re-consideration as it is "unconstitutional and immoral".