Madras High Court dismissed a petition, challenging the order of the Tamil Nadu Government to hike the salary of MLA’s and allot land for constructing houses.

When a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by Social activist Traffic Ramasamy came up for hearing before the first Bench comprising Chief Justice H L Gokhale and Mr Justice D Murugesan, Government Pleader (GP) Raja Kalifulla submitted that the government had announced the salary hike to the MLA’s in the state Assembly.

"The government, which is yet to take any decision to allot a piece of land to MLA’s, has closed the proposal of allotting lands to them," the Government Pleader informed the court.

While dismissing the petition, the Bench recorded the statement of the GP, and said, the government had increased the salary of MLA’s in the permissible limit.

In his petition, K R Ramaswamy alias Traffic Ramaswamy, submitted that the Finance Minister had announced a hike in the salary of MLAs.

Stating that legislators were expected to serve the people, the petitioner recalled that in the distant past only a honorarium was paid to MLA’s when they attended Assembly sessions.

There was no fixed monthly salary and the hike in salary was unwarranted, he contended.

As MLAs were at present provided free accommodation with modern facilities, it was not necessary to allot free land or land at a concessional price in the city, which was already facing acute shortage of space. When several hut dwellers were not able to get better accommodation, it was not fair to give additional accommodation to MLA’s, most of whom owned houses in their constituencies.

He had sent a fax message to the authorities, the Finance Minister and the Chief Minister to reconsider the decision, the petitioner said.

UNI