Amid ambiguity over salaries of newly elected Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather has sought clarification from Jammu Kashmir Government on the matter.
Sources within the J- K government disclosed that the Speaker has written to the administrative secretary, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs over the matter due to confusion in the legal provisions regarding salaries of MLAs.
“The Speaker has asked the government to clarify in light of the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, whose section 31 states that LG should determine salaries of MLAs till Jammu & Kashmir Assembly enacts law over the matter. However, the law regarding salaries of MLAs in erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir was protected under the Reorganisation Act,” they said.
Under section 31 of J&K Reorganisation Act, LG should determine salaries of MLAs until J&K Assembly would enact a law on the matter.
“Members of the Legislative Assembly shall be entitled to receive such salaries and allowances as may from time to time be determined by the Legislative Assembly by law and, until provision in that behalf is so made, such salaries and allowances as the Lieutenant Governor may, by order determine,” reads the Act.
Interestingly, the law governing salaries of MLAs in the erstwhile State of J&K was kept intact through the same Reorganisation Act-2019.
The “Salaries and Allowances of Members of Jammu and Kashmir State Legislature XIX of 1960” was among 166 state laws which were made applicable to J&K UT through Reorganisation Act.
Talking to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather said that he has written to the government over the matter.
“I am hopeful that they will soon get their salaries,” he said.
In the erstwhile state, each MLA was entitled to salary and allowances of Rs 1. 60 lakh per month after it was doubled during the PDP-BJP rule in 2016—(KNO)