‘Chautalas entitled to draw pensions’

EX-CM OP CHAUTALA GETS A MONTHLY PENSION OF ABOUT `2.15 LAKH WHEREAS AJAY CHAUTALA GETS `50,000

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Vidhan Sabha secretary RK Nandal, who heard the arguments and submissions on a petition challenging the pensions being given to the jailed leaders of opposition INLD OP Chautala and his son Ajay Chautala, convicted in the JBT teachers’ recruitment scam case in 2013, last week, on Monday ruled that they are entitled to draw their pension as former MLAs.

The petitioner, advocate H C Arora, who had challenged the pensions being given to the INLD leaders, held that Chautalas had been disqualified from getting pension for 16 years from date of conviction in the said case. He had filed a PIL in the Punjab and Haryana high court about five months ago, which directed the Haryana Vidhan Sabha secretary to decide the case within two months. Arora as well as the counsel representing Chautalas, Naresh S Shekhawat, had appeared before the secretary last week.

Shekhawat argued that Chautalas had neither been disqualified under the Representation of People Act, nor disqualified for any term or any duration of period as MLA, hence the pension to them could not be challenged.

Arora held that disqualification under the Actwas by operation of law, and it became effective as soon as conviction of Chautalas became final on dismissal of their appeals, and no specific order for disqualifying them was required to be passed.

Nandal held that none of the provisions the sections (7 and 8) of the Act, allowed to withhold the pension of any former MLA. “The word ‘disqualified’ does not relate to the question of pension, but to the contest of election for being elected as a member,” he said in his order.