[Letter to Mr Minoo Masani]

Summary

This is a one-page official communication on Lok Sabha Secretariat letterhead, dated 9 December 1970 (Agrahayana 18, 1892 Saka), from Shri P. K. Patnaik, Joint Secretary, to Shri M. R. Masani, M.P. It replies to Masani’s earlier letter of 2 September 1970 concerning the Salaries and Allowances of Ministers Bill, 1970, and forwards a copy of a letter dated 8 December 1970 from Shri Krishna Chandra Pant, Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The substantive content is procedural. The Secretariat transmits the Presidential recommendation required for the Bill, quoting the ministerial letter directly: the President recommends the Bill’s introduction in the Lok Sabha under articles 117(1) and 274(1) of the Constitution and its consideration under article 117(3). The document is thus a small piece of the paper trail by which the constitutional prerequisite for a money bill affecting ministerial emoluments was communicated to an opposition member who had queried it — Masani being a leading Swatantra Party parliamentarian at the time.

Key points

• Letter bearing reference No. 21/9(32)/70/L, dated 9 December 1970 (Agrahayana 18, 1892 Saka), issued from the Lok Sabha Secretariat at Parliament House, New Delhi.
• Sender: Shri P. K. Patnaik, Joint Secretary. Addressee: Shri M. R. Masani, M.P.
• Subject line: ‘The Salaries and Allowances of Ministers Bill, 1970.’
• The letter refers back to Masani’s own letter of 2 September 1970 on the same Bill and encloses a copy of a letter dated 8 December 1970 from Shri Krishna Chandra Pant, Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The forwarded ministerial letter is quoted to record the constitutional formality: the President recommends the Bill’s introduction under articles 117(1) and 274(1) and its consideration under article 117(3) of the Constitution.
• The document is procedural rather than argumentative — evidence of the Presidential recommendation that must precede parliamentary consideration of a money bill on ministerial pay.