A Minister’s monthly salary is less than that of a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and therefore arrested Minister V. Senthilbalaji would actually be receiving more salary if he is removed from the Cabinet as demanded by a group of litigants, Advocate-General R. Shunmugasundaram argued before the Madras High Court on Friday.
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Appearing before the First Division Bench of Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu, he said an MLA is entitled to a monthly salary of ₹1.05 lakh, apart from the sitting fees paid every day when the Assembly was in session, whereas the monthly salary of an MLA elevated to the post of Minister was only ₹76,800.
The Advocate-General, however, added that the Ministers do enjoy other privileges such as payments for their travel, government cars and so on. The submissions were made in reply to a complaint made by one of the petitioners that the arrested Minister, without portfolio, was continuously drawing salary from the public exchequer without performing any duty.
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Reacting to it, senior counsel V. Raghavachari, representing AIADMK former MP J. Jayavardhan, who was one of the petitioners, said, “I am astounded by the submissions of the Advocate-General. Every Minister enjoys a sprawling bungalow on Greenways Road in Chennai, multiple servants, cars, electricity bill and protocol. Poor MLAs do not enjoy all this.”
At this point, the Chief Justice, in a lighter vein, highlighted the adjective ‘poor’ having been added to the MLAs. After a hearty laughter, the senior counsel said the usage of the word was only in comparative terms. He went on to argue that a person incapacitated from performing the duties of a Minister could not be allowed to continue in office.
Advocates R. Sakthivel and S. Sheik Ismail, too, argued on behalf of M.L. Ravi of the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi and S. Ramachandran who had also questioned the continuation of the Minister in the Cabinet despite his being in judicial custody ever since he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case on June 14.
Earlier in the day, the Advocate-General referred to several Supreme Court judgments to substantiate his contention that it was the prerogative of the Chief Minister to decide who should be in his Cabinet and the Governor could not act unilaterally on such issues without any recommendation from the Chief Minister.
After both sides concluded their oral arguments on Friday, the judges directed the Registry to list the matter again on August 4 for submission of written arguments.