NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to spell out its stand on setting up a permanent mechanism for determining sitting parliamentarians’ salaries and allowances.
A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said an affidavit filed on September 1, 2017 had not made the Centre’s stand clear and slated the next hearing for March 5.
The bench took exception to the Centre’s argument that policy matters should be left to Parliament and not decided by the court. “The government’s policy is dynamic. However, you can’t change it every day,” it said.
Appearing for NGO Lok Prahari, which had filed a petition in the matter, its General Secretary S N Shukla said that it had been 11 years since all parties, in a meeting convened by the Lok Sabha Speaker, had unanimously decided to have a mechanism for fixing the salaries and allowances of MPs, but nothing had been done so far. The NGO has told the court that a Parliamentary panel had also advocated a permanent mechanism for the purpose.