RTI exposes lawmakers over non payment of dues

Strange are the ways of our law makers. They are united when they tax us. They are still united in not paying their dues. A Right to Information (RTI) application revealed that how current and former, living and and dead MPs have failed to clear their water and electricity dues to New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).

Topping the list is late ABA Ghani Khan Choudhary who holds the record with dues worth Rs 42 lakhs.

Others in the illustrious company are late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, Aslam Sher Khan, Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhhvi, Anadi Charan Das, Arun Shourie, BL Sharma (Prem) Balbir Punj, Basant Kumar Das, Bhajan Lal, Beni Prasad Verma, Chandrakant Kaire, Dalit Ezhlmalai, EM Sudarashana Nachtiappan, Renuka Chowdhury etc.

Also'gracing' the list include former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, former Home Minister Indrajit Gupta, L K Advani, well known Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and RJD MP Jai Narain Prashad Nishad, ex BSP supremo Kanshi Ram, Congress leader Margaret Alva, Ex BJP MP and TV star Nitish Bharadwaj , Oscar Fernandes and late bandit queen and ex MP Phoolan Devi.

Even former Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh's name has been found in the list of defaulters along with late G K Moopanar.

"Our Parliamentarians should race for Guinness World Record for having maximum pending government-dues against them. RTI response from NDMC has revealed that much more than this amount is pending as electricity and other municipal dues against them", said RTI applicant Subhash Chandra Agrawal.

Earlier, an RTI response had revealed pending dues of more than more than Rs 7 cr in the form of telephone bills towards parliamentarians.

Ironically, NDMC has also failed to recover such outstanding from these hi-fi defaulters.

The applicant also added that inquiries should be done about why services were not disconnected over non-payment of dues.

“Even now if present Parliamentarians do not clear all their pending dues within a stipulated time-period of say three months, not only recovery-proceedings should be initiated against them, but even their membership of Parliament should be cancelled, said Agrawal.

Arwal also suggests that if our lawmakers do not pay for services then the amount should be deducted from their salaries and pensions.

"No-dues certificate should be made mandatory for contestants before filing nomination for any election. Services like telephone, water, electricity etc should be disconnected for non-payment of any single bill, like that is done in case of normal citizens. Likewise government-accommodations should be forcibly vacated within one month of losing entitlement to retain these. In case of dues towards deceased Parliamentarians, these should be recovered from their legal heirs who might have benefitted from assets left by deceased Parliamentarians," he added.