In yet another judicial setback for the Mamata Banerjee Government, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Monday struck down the State Act passed in December 2012 creating the posts of Parliamentary Secretaries.
With the posts of 26 powerful MlAs, currently enjoying the rank of State Ministers as parliamentary secretaries, at stake unrest is inevitable inside the Trinamool Congress in an election year if the State fails to get a stay from the Supreme Court, experts said.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Joymalya Bagchi ruled the law unconstitutional, said senior Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya. The Court accepted petitioner’s view that “the law was a fraud on the Constitution as it bypassed Article 164(1) which states that the total number of Ministers in a State cannot exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of the MlAs,” he said.
The maximum permissible strength of Ministers in Bengal is 44 as the State Assembly is a 294-member House. Posts of parliamentary secretary were in vogue in the British period but were discontinued after that.
The West Bengal Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act was passed in December 2012 to appoint parliamentary secretaries of the rank of State Ministers whom they would “aid and advise.” It came into force in January 2013.
Bhattacharya a former Kolkata Corporation Mayor who was also instrumental in securing the vital Supreme Court order directing CBI investigation into the Saradha chit fund case said, “We had challenged the constitutionality of the Act on the grounds that the State Assembly was not competent to enact such a law.”
Also, he said it was the duty of the Chief Secretary to withdraw all the State facilities provided to the said parliamentary secretaries “at the cost of public money.” The order rendered “all the post of parliamentary secretaries void and all the appointments made under it now stand nullified.”
When contacted State law Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said the Government would take a decision only after the copy of the order was obtained. But “certainly the State has the right to appeal before the Supreme Court.”
Senior Congress leader Abdul Mannan said, “As a dictatorial ruler the Chief Minister ignores others’ views and creates legal problems for her Government. In the Singur case also she had suffered a similar setback and now the case is in Supreme Court. The question is whose money she is wasting by fighting legal battlesIJ”