Bill designed exclusively to target Opposition parties: Abhishek Singhvi

COngress lawmaker and senior counselor Abhishek Singhvi opposed the banker's bill seeking remotion of ministers, including PM and CMs, locution it is intentional exclusively to target Opposition parties. Edited excerpts of his interview to Saubhadra Chatterji.The Centre says officers can lose their jobs if arrested for 52 hours but ministers could continue even if they are behind bars for months. Superficial examples like government servants are intended to mislead the people of this country. A government servant is not an elected representative. He is not political representative as a CM or a minister, who is accountable to people and responsible for governance. Removing a CM from elected post leads to destabilisation of the entire government and has no similarity whatsoever with the arrest of an official.But removal is only if a minister is arrested for 30 days and that too for a crime that has a five-year imprisonment. The word arrest itself connotes a crime. The government is misleading us. As far as the 5-year criteria is concerned it still covers a whole host of alleged crimes. We have seen for last 11 years all independent agencies [have been] acting like coalition partner of government. All those crimes will lead to dislodging of governments. It is designed exclusively to target Opposition parties and their governments in the states.Arvind Kejriwal was running Delhi government from Tihar jail. Wasn’t it a travesty of Constitutional morality? On the contrary, Kejriwal is the best example against this proposed ridiculous law. Had he been dislodged from CM post, how would the court restore any of the following: his impact as a campaigner in the Lok Sabha in the capacity of being the CM, or possible fall of his government consequent upon his dislodgment as CM. Could any law or any court restore this loss and adjust the balance of convenience of his elected CM status?His whole stand was it was politically motivated case.The bill has been sent to a JPC.JPC may not be much help because unfortunately, it works entirely on legislative majority. The fundamentally, unconstitutional, perverse nature of the bill will be ultimately struck down by the court, because it relies upon an executive act which is uncertain and arbitrary. The proposed law violates Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. It is a mindless law with ulterior motives.The government has also brought the Prime Minister under the ambit of this proposed law. The reference to the PM is laughable. Does anyone ready to believe that the PM can be arrested by federal agencies that act as extensions of the ruling dispensation? Forget the PM, is it possible that the Delhi Police or CBI or ED will arrest of any BJP chief minister or minister? That provision is unreal and illusory. This law is unsustainable because the legislature prescribes how and when elected representatives can be disqualified. The Representation of the People Act has put a standard or the criterion. There is a large element of judicial adjudication involved in any such conviction which will then trigger disqualification.