A big news has come out from the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court regarding the politics of Uttar Pradesh and the comforts of former public representatives. The Court has outrightly rejected the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the huge pension, family pension and other government facilities received by former MLAs and Legislative Council Members (MLAs and MLCs). After this decision, the pension and allowances of former honorable leaders will remain safe as before.
During the hearing, the High Court made a very important comment. The court clearly said that the matter of providing pension and other facilities to former public representatives completely falls within the jurisdiction of the legislature. These rules cannot be declared unconstitutional or illegal merely on the basis of policy differences or disagreement with any policy. This big decision has been given by the division bench of Justice Rajan Rai and Justice AK Chaudhary.
What was the demand of the petitioner and why was there an uproar?
Let us tell you that this PIL was filed by S.N., General Secretary of an organization named ‘Lok Prahari’. It was filed on behalf of Shukla. In this petition, a strong demand was made to declare several sections of the Uttar Pradesh State Legislature (Salaries, Allowances and Pension of Members) Act, 1980 as unconstitutional.
The petitioner argued that giving huge pension, free medical treatment, free travel and other luxurious facilities every month to former MLAs, Legislative Council members and their families is completely against the basic spirit of the Constitution. Along with this, it was also requested in the petition that the High Court should order the state government to stop all these facilities and payments with immediate effect.
Pension received from government treasury is not donation: State government
When the debate on this matter started in the court, the Uttar Pradesh government put forward its stand very strongly. It was argued by the government that the pension received by the MLAs is not a donation, dole or ex-gratia. This is a fixed statutory facility given by the Honorable Members in return for the public service rendered to the public and the region during their legislative tenure.
The government lawyer told the court that all these rules and provisions have been implemented by the Legislature by making laws, hence they cannot be considered arbitrary or wrong in any way. The High Court bench listened to the arguments of both the parties very closely and after studying all the documents, clearly refused to interfere in this matter.
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