The Government of any country i.e. the ruling party for a particular tenure is elected by the citizens of that particular country. Later on the government is formed by these MPS and MLAs by winning the majority votes in the Council of States and the House of the people respectively or in the Assembly Elections in foreign countries at the time of election.

The question here arises with regards to the salaries, perquisites and other allowances which is being paid to the MPS and MLAs who is working under the State Assembly and House of Parliament respectively for the betterment and development of the society (State) and the nation as a whole. In short they form the part of the social and cultural organization. these mps and MLAs form a particular group (i.e. Congress, BJP, AAP etc) among themselves and promote their respective group at the time of the election and one among them becomes the leader and represent the own party.

Article 106 of the constitution of India mentions that “the mps and MLAs should be provided with the salaries, perquisites, and other allowances from time to time”. under the income tax act 1961, this salary or the income is taxable under the “income from salary” only if there exists the employer and employee relationship between them. so in this case the mps and MLAs are the government employees, they function under the respective state assembly and house of the parliament, so do the income they receive is taxable under the head “income from salary”.

Under the income tax act 1961, the perquisites and other dearness allowances which they receive is taxable under the head “income from other sources” and not under the head “income from salary”.

These perquisites and allowances is exempt under section 10(17) of the income tax act 1961. There are various allowances which are being granted to the mps and MLAs during their tenure, they are as follows:
Travelling allowances
Medical allowances
Food facility
Telephone facility
Hotel accommodation etc.

Travelling allowances is granted to them for travelling from office to home and from home to their work place, it is not granted for their personal use. They are also provided with medical allowances for their routine health checkups, no matter it is fact that some mps do go through the monthly health checkups for their fitness. Mps and MLAs are provided with the food facility whether in the parliament or when they are travelling. Telephone facility is being provided to them for communicating with the mps and MLAs or with the cm for taking the decisions on a particular subject matter. Whenever they travel abroad for the campaigning purpose, they do receive the hotel accommodation only for the particular days. On the other side some MLAs and mps do make the irrational use (personal use) of these allowances prescribed to them, which is against the provisions of section 10(17) of the income tax act 1961 And henceforth is not exempt.

Article 102(1)(a) and article 191(1)(a) of the constitution of India outlines that no MLAs and mps should hold their office for profit or for their fruitful gain which is strictly against the provisions of the constitution of India. the recent case is that of a twenty AAP MLAs being wrongly elected as member and were holding their office for profit. due the sufficient evidence and reasoning been provided to the court, the court ordered the restoration of their office. The news has also being viral that the finance minister Mr.Arun Jaitely made a irrational use of money (government treasury) for the marriage of his daughter.

Article 125 and 221 of the constitution of India prescribes the salaries to the judges and the magistrates. The salaries which they receive are taxable under the head “income from salary” because they are the government employees.

The loopside of this article is that are these MLAs and mps trustworthy enough to be elected as chief minister of a particular state or prime minister of a country? The expenditure which is incurred during the campaigning by any party contesting electoral poll is the treasury of the government and not out of pocket expense of these MLAs and mps, so there are every chances that these hard earned money of the citizens can be utilized abruptly. The cost which is mainly incurred are for public meetings, promotions via print, media, banners, posters, vehicles on rent etc. So these are the add-on benefits which are received by every electoral party by and from the government. The lok sabha has increased the cost of expenditure from rupees fourty lakhs to rupees seventy lakhs for bigger states i.e Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh etc and rupees twenty two lakhs to fifty four lakhs for smaller states which include goa, hilly regions etc.

Talking of trustworthiness, the former chief minister of Bihar, Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav who is being involved in the fodder scam i.e. fraudulent withdrawal of money from government treasury. The Supreme Court in this case passed an order against him and sentenced him to imprisonment along with fine. So these are the ministers who should not be paid any allowances, perquisites, pension etc. Also the retired MLAs and mps should not be provided with any further salaries, allowances, perquisites, pension etc.

It is to be noted that the salaries of every chief minister differ from state to state. So the government should justify the salary of every chief minister on equal footings. Also the MLAs and mps who are not attending the assembly sessions on regular basis and are not functioning under it efficiently, strict action should be taken against them. There are also such chief ministers who have donated their salary to their party for eg: former cpi (communist party of India) minister Mr.manik sarkar. It is well enough that these ministers are paid their taxable income during their tenure of service to a particular state or a country, but it is unfair that they do get their taxable income and avail government facilities even after your retirement. The former us president Mr. Barack obama do not avail the government luxuries after his retirement. So such is the difference between the ministers of two nations.

During the congress reign, the ministers were far more corrupt and fraudulent in terms of various schemes and development they have brought up, in terms of campaigning, economic affairs of the country etc.as compared to the bjp government. If we think of such corrupt government then i think the salaries, perquisites and other allowances which are being paid is just to satisfy the public, so as to caste their crucial vote to them during the elections.

Taking into consideration the issue the present act of salary, allowances and pension of members of parliament act 1954, representation of people act 1951 should be amended from time to time by the government of India.