Afternoon
Voice: Editorial: Tuesday, 03 March 2020.
In
2019, Madhya Pradesh-based activist Chandra Shekhar Gaur filed a RTI query. The
Lok Sabha Secretariat’s First Appellate Authority cited Section 8 (1) (j) of
the RTI Act which authorises the information holding authority to refuse
information if it deems it personal. The reply given was actually very strange.
The information, the Lok Sabha Secretariat has informed, was “personal”, so
details would not be shared. According to the Finance Bill of 2018, former MPs
are entitled to a pension of Rs 25,000 every month if they complete their
five-year term. The MPs are entitled to an additional Rs 2,000 for every year
served as an MP over the five-year period. Under the Salary, Allowances and
Pension of Members of Parliament Act, 1954, an MP loses his entitlement to
pension and perks in case he is appointed the President, Vice-President, or is
re-elected to either House or gets employed in the central or state government.
The
Section says that “information which relates to personal information, the
disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest or
which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual” may
not be shared “unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State
Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is
satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure.” It also
adds that this is “provided that the information which cannot be denied to the
Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person.”
The
salaries and pensions of parliamentarians are decided by the Parliament through
open deliberation and thus, constitute information, which can be placed before
Parliament if a member asks for it from the Authority. The RTI query had sought
the information of pensions and allowances given to Amarinder Singh, Mehbooba
Mufti, Yogi Adityanath, Mamata Banerjee, Sarbananda Sonowal, Nitish Kumar,
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje, Manohar Parrikar, Kamal Nath, V.
Narayanasamy, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot (current Rajasthan deputy chief
minister), between 2013 and 2018 December. All of them have been MPs and later
went on to become chief ministers except Pilot. After a year-long hearing, a
Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Chelameswar dismissed a petition that
sought the scrapping of pension and perks being given to ex-MPs. The court also
rejected a plea to regulate the salary and allowances of sitting MPs. The bench
was delivering a judgement in an appeal filed by NGO ‘Lok Prahari‘ against the
Allahabad High Court order dismissing its plea alleging that pension and other
perks being given to MPs even after demitting office are contrary to Article 14
(Right to Equality) of the Constitution.
The
SC agreed with the findings of the Allahabad High Court that Parliament is
competent to legislate on pensions for ex-MPs and has the power to prescribe
any condition subject to which the pension may be paid. In the process, what
the court cleared for former MPs includes life-long pension, travel facilities,
telephone calls, free electricity and water unlimited travel by train along with
spouse from any place in India to any other place in the country and up to
eight air journeys in a year from the MP’s place of residence to Delhi and back
when Parliament is in session.
According
to this new SC mandate, the spouse of the MP gets unlimited train travel by
first class AC at any time in the year and along associate of the former MP get
free AC-II tier pass to accompany him/her in all train journeys. The petition
had challenged the constitutional validity of the law and sought its scrapping.
“Parliament has no power to provide for pensioners benefits to lawmakers
without making any law,” it said. 82 per cent of the lawmakers were
“crorepatis” and “the poor tax payers should not be made to bear the burden of
their pension including their family pension,” the petitioner NGO said. Backing
the pension and other perks for MPs, the Centre had told the court that the
entitlement of former MPs to get pension and other benefits was “justified” as
their dignity has to be maintained even after they complete their tenure as
Parliamentarians. He also informed the bench about the Finance Bill 2018 which
contains provisions regarding salary and pension of MPs and also about the
revision of their allowances after every five years starting from April 1, 2023
on the basis of cost inflation index. The term of appointment of the Member of
Parliament (MP) in India is only five years and hence they get pension after
five years.
The
term of appointment of government servants including Army and civil services is
for 25-40 years i.e. until they become sixty years. They still get a full
pension after 20 years. An IRS officer, who served Government of India for 25
years, gets the pension of around Rs 90,000 per month, which is half of the
total salary received by him at the time of his retirement. A retired Cabinet
Secretary of Government of India gets a pension of more than 1, 25,000 per
month. Now compare these pensions with the pension of an MP. MP is paid a base
salary of
Rs
50,000 per month and is entitled to a pension of only Rs. 20,000 per month. If
a MP serves as a member for a period exceeding five years, this pension
increases by 1,500 for each additional year of service.
One
term MP thus gets lesser pension than even the clerk who has retired in a
government on superannuation. This pension is not even 10 per cent of the
benefits, which a sitting MP gets. Such benefits are estimated to be more than
Rs 3,00,000 per month. Let our MPs get decent salaries and pension so that they
don’t have to engage in corruption. But scenario is completely otherwise, in
spite getting paid they are neck deep MPs are the representatives of the people
and the most important people in democracies as they represent the people of
India.
They
deserve much more than what in greed of getting more. Their intent is serving
themselves than the people. They are getting lawfully now but for that they
really need to serve people coming out of glamour posts; they need to slog for
the people and their welfare unconditionally. When politics becomes an opportunity
for them, why would they be paid our hard earned money is the question here.
People’s representatives just gave themselves financial bonanza. One has to
complete 21 years of service to become eligible for pension. Why pension for a
peoples representative? It is not a government service. No qualifications
fixed. No retirement age. It is for the people to raise questions?
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