Rajasthan: Return 90 days salary to treasury, BJP leader tells 91 MLAs who resigned

Jaipur, Dec 30 (IANS) The case pertaining to the en masse resignation by 91 Congress MLAs on September 25 has been listed for hearing in the court of the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court on January 2.

On December 1, Deputy Leader of Opposition (BJP), Rajendra Singh Rathore, had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Rajasthan High Court seeking judicial intervention in the matter related to the 'dilly dallying' tactics of Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi in taking a decision on the resignations.

Ahead of the crucial hearing, Rathore on Friday demanded that all the 91 MLAs, who had submitted their resignations to Speaker Joshi, should at least deposit their three months' salaries and other incentives, which they received even after submitting their resignations, to the treasury.

Rathore also demanded that the names of these 91 MLAs should be made public so that people get to know how far the leaders elected by them can go to play with their trust and public sentiments for their own selfishn gains.

"On September 25, 91 MLAs had handed over their resignation letters to the Speaker with their signatures on them. It is not possible that the resignations were forcibly taken from the 91 MLAs, nor is it possible that all the signatures were forged," said Rathore, after the case was listed for January 2 hearing.

"According to Assembly rules, the resignations needed to be accepted with immediate effect. The fact that it has taken over 90 days to test the prescribed format of the one-line of resignation letters means that the sponsors of this resignation game will have to face the court, which has listed the matter for hearing on January 2," he added.

It needs to be mentioned here that 91 MLAs had resigned on September 25 by calling a parallel meeting to the official Congress Legislative Party meeting called at the Chief Minister's residence.

Rathore said, "All these 91 MLAs should at least return 90 days' salaries and other incentives to the treasury. For the past 90 days, a government has been in place in Rajasthan which clearly did not have the confidence of the House. There is no provision in the law to withdraw resignations submitted with immediate effect, nor has any procedure been laid down regarding withdrawing the resignations.

"The Speaker could not legally compel the MLAs who had resigned to continue in their post as MLA. The MLAs who resigned should not to wait for the Speaker's acceptance. For the over 90 days since resigning, these MLAs have been taking full advantage of all the government facilities. I condemn this fake resignation scandal.

"Distressed by the unconstitutional conduct displayed in such a sensitive matter, I was forced to take the refuge of the high court. I would urge the court that all those who played a role in this systematic betrayal of constitutional institutions and processes are identified and taken to task."