One daily comes across news items to the effect that the Election Commission has suspended the membership of so and so because they have failed to submit declaration of their private assets as required under the law. These suspensions are later on lifted and nobody knows whether or not the delinquent parliamentarians were fined before their suspension orders were withdrawn or were they allowed to get off lightly.
One is not aware whether or not the EC has evolved any mechanism to ascertain as to the value of the private assets of a parliamentarian at the time of his taking oath as a member of the Assembly as well its monetary worth at the end of his stint as a parliamentarian .
It is understood that the NAB is going to file references against the two former Prime ministers and one president for violating the rules and regulations that govern receipt of costly gifts from the host countries by the public office holders during their foreign sojourns The rules on the subject say that on return home the recipient of these gifts would have to declare them by depositing them in the tosha khana of the state bank. No doubt they have a prior right over their ownership but first of all the government will appoint a committee for determining the market value of these gifts. If the recipients deposit some percentage of their market value in the government treasury they become their owners If they don’t then these gifts are to be put to open auction and the amount so realised goes to the government treasury. The point which is to be determined in the aforementioned case against the former Prime ministers and the president is that did they or didn’t they follow the rules on the subject? If they had not observed the rules then of course an example needs to be made of them so as to discourage the would _be violators of these rules.
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