New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice in a plea filed by Lok Prahari challenging provisions of the Uttar Pradesh law providing salary, allowances, pension, and other benefits to serving and former members of the state legislature.
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government, the Principal Secretaries of the Vidhan Sabha and the Vidhan Parishad on a petition filed by Lok Prahari through its General Secretary, S.N. Shukla, who appeared in person.
The matter has been tentatively listed for October 9.
The plea challenges various provisions of the Uttar Pradesh State Legislature (Members’ Emoluments and Pension) Act, 1980, including those relating to constituency allowance, railway coupons, journey allowances, daily allowance, loans to members and pensionary benefits available to former MLAs and MLCs and their families.
Lok Prahari has contended that Article 195 of the Constitution empowers a state legislature to provide salaries and allowances to its members, but does not expressly mention pension or post-retirement benefits.
The petition seeks, among other reliefs, a direction to stop payment of pension and family pension to former MLAs and MLCs and their spouses, recovery of expenditure incurred under the allegedly illegal provisions, and establishment of an independent mechanism to recommend revision of salaries and allowances.
Earlier, the Allahabad High Court, in its judgment delivered on May 13, had dismissed the PIL, holding that the impugned provisions fell within the legislative competence of the state legislature and did not violate any constitutional limitation.
A Division Bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary had observed that Article 195, read with Entry 38 of List II of the Seventh Schedule, empowered the state legislature to provide various allowances to its members.
The High Court also relied on the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment in Lok Prahari v. Union of India, which had dealt with similar challenges concerning pension and other benefits for Members of Parliament.
The Allahabad High Court observed that the Supreme Court had held that the expression “allowances” in Entry 73 of List I was wide enough to cover pension and other benefits for MPs and former MPs.
It further rejected the argument that pension could be granted only to government employees, referring to the Supreme Court’s observation that there are several categories of state payments described as pensions, including old-age, widow, and disability pensions.
The High Court also took note of similar rulings of the Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan High Courts upholding pensionary benefits for legislators. It held that the quantum of pension and allowances was essentially a matter of legislative policy and that courts could not interfere merely because they disagreed with the policy underlying such benefits.
“The determination of the quantum of benefits lies within the exclusive domain of the Legislature,” the Allahabad High Court had said, adding that judicial review in such matters was limited to cases involving manifest arbitrariness, unreasonableness or a clear constitutional violation. Holding that the challenge was essentially rooted in a policy disagreement rather than a demonstrable constitutional infirmity, the High Court had dismissed the PIL.
(IANS)
