Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has said former president A P J Abdul Kalam’s act of forwarding all complaints about the office of profit to the Election Commission without verifying the evidence prima facie was a “great injustice to the people charged.”

In early 2006, Kalam forwarded to the EC, a letter wrtten by Mukul Roy of the Trinamool Congress, alleging that Chatterjee was president of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, and Chairman of the Sriniketan-Santiniketan Development Authority (SSDA). Chatterjee had said then that he was “surprised” by the act of the president, but in an exclusive interview The Sunday Express on a range of issues, he minced few words.

“I was never president of the society and SSDA chairman is not an office of profit. I never got an opportunity to explain the charges against me. The President’s office did not seek my explanation and the EC acted like an investigating agency. When the government later expanded the list of exception for office of profit, it looked I was being exonerated,” Chatterjee said. “I would say it was obnoxious.”

Chatterjee said the entire office of profit controversy appeared as if to fix people one after another, and the people charged were left to prove their innocence rather than those making allegations asked to prove it. “It was as if anyone can write anything and there would be an inquiry,” he said.

“Despite my greatest regard for President Kalam, I must say he was wrongly advised. He should not have used the Presidential reference against another constitutional authority without intense scrutiny. It was a plain letter written by one individual, factually wrong and without any supporting evidence. Now I am left with the allegation of having been rescued by the government. There was not even a sworn affidavit. Otherwise, I could have taken to legal recourse,” the Speaker said.

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