Assam law on parliamentary secys illegal, says apex court

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 27

The Supreme Court has declared as unconstitutional the Assam Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2004, saying the state legislature lacked the competence to create the post of Parliamentary Secretary.

The verdict came on a petition  questioning the appointment of eight Parliamentary Secretaries in 2005. The petitioner contended that the Act violated Article 164(1A) of the Constitution that mandated that the size of the Council of Ministers in the state should not exceed 15% of the strength of the Assembly.

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On January 1, 2004, the strength of the Council of Ministers in Assam was 36 (of a total of 126 members), which was 28.57% of the strength of the Assembly. The strength of the ministers was to be brought down to 19 to be consistent with the Article 164(1A).

However, Section 4 of the state Act declared that Parliamentary Secretary should be of the rank and status of Minister of State and discharge such functions as may be assigned to him by the Chief Minister, exceeding the 15% ceiling.  The verdict comes 10 months after the Delhi High Court set aside the Arvind Kejriwal government’s decision appointing 21 AAP MLAs as Parliamentary  Secretaries. 

Assam had claimed that Article 194(3) and Entry 39 of List II (State List) of the 7th Schedule authorised its legislature to make the impugned Act. The SC, however, held that Article 194 did not authorise the state legislature to create offices such as the one in question.

What does law say 

Article 164(1A) mandates that the size of the Council of Ministers in the state should not exceed 15% of the total strength of the Assembly. In Assam’s case, it exceeded to 28.57%