Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Feb 16: Notwithstanding the approval of State Cabinet for enacting a Bill aimed at providing retrospective effect to pension revision arrears of former Legislators on the pattern of sitting Legislators, the State Government has ‘dumped’ the proposal on the pretext of financial implications involved in it.
Nearly five months after Cabinet’s nod on October 4, last year, the Finance Department has been sitting over the matter and chosen to ‘ignore’ even the references made by Governor, N N Vohra over the important matter.
The Bill pertaining to giving retrospective effect to pension revision arrears of former Legislators had got mired into a controversy after the Governor returned the file pertaining to the Bill passed by Cabinet with a note saying, “the Financial Memorandum pertaining to the Act hadn’t been enclosed in the file”. Sources stated that the Raj Bhavan was also keen to know about the financial implications of the decision after giving it retrospective affect.
“Taking cover of the Governor’s reference, the State Government referred the matter to the Finance Department with instructions to dump the matter. With the result, even five months after the reference made by Raj Bhavan, the Finance Department has chosen not to respond to the matter”, sources asserted.
“The Government was not keen to amend the rules pertaining to the subject and the Governor’s references provided it the necessary camouflage to get out of the precarious situation”, sources asserted.
Top officials of the Finance Department, when asked about the status of the important matter chose to pass the buck on one another. “Each official chose to put the blame on his colleague about the State of affairs and expressed their ignorance about the status of decision pertaining to arrears of former Legislators”, sources emphasised.
It is pertinent to mention here that the pension of ex-Legislators is governed by the J&K State Legislature Members’ Pension Act, 1984 and this Act was amended in the year 2011 with April 21, 2011 as its date of commencement. However, the salaries and allowances of the Legislators, Ministers and Deputy Ministers were enhanced with September 1, 2009 as date of enforcement.
Since then there has been constant demand from the ex-Legislators for payment of arrears of pension with effect from September 1, 2009 instead of April 21, 2011 as has been done in case of sitting Members of the State Legislature. The ex-Legislators even raised this issue before the Chief Minister and Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.
On October 4 last year, the State Cabinet gave itsnod to the amendment in the J&K State Legislature Members Pension Act, 2011 in order to provide pension revision arrears to the former Legislators on the pattern of sitting Legislators to pave way for its introduction in Legislative Assembly.
As per the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution, which deals with the Special procedure of Money Bill like this one, prior concurrence of State Governor is mandatory for their introduction in the Legislature and such Bill can only be introduced in the Legislative Assembly.
However, Governor N N Vohra returned the file pertaining to the Bill passed by the Cabinet, which is aimed at providing retrospective effect to pension revision arrears to the former Legislators on thepattern of sitting Legislators, with a note saying, “the Financial Memorandum pertaining to the Act hadn’t been enclosed in the file”.
“Though the Governor had not principally opposed the introduction of this Money Bill in the Legislature, he was curious to know the financial implication of the proposed bill”, sources said adding, “as per the official procedure, all such Money Bills are normally accompanied by Financial Memorandum dwelling on the burden the State exchequer has to bear after their implementation”.
Official sources also pointed out, “the State Governor had earlier also written to the State Government that all the Money Bills, which they intend to introduce in Legislature should be sent at least 21 days before its introduction so that sufficient time is available to scrutinize the financial implication of such Bills. In this case also, the file pertaining to Amendment Bill proposing retrospective effect in pension had been sent late to the Raj Bhavan”.
Subsequently, the file had been referred to the Finance Department and till date they had failed to revert back to the Raj Bhavan with necessary details.
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