The Centre Friday told the Supreme Court that monetary considerations come in the way of increasing monthly pension to old age persons as the government "just cannot draw" money from other places.
The Centre's submitted this before a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta while responding to arguments advanced by former union minister and senior advocate Ashwini Kumar, who has filed a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to increase the monthly pensions of Rs 200 and Rs 500 which were fixed way back in 2007 for senior citizens.
Kumar, who told the apex court that he had "failed" as a parliamentarian and minister but did not want to fail as a citizen, said that in 2007 the Centre had fixed Rs 200 as pension to senior citizens aged between 60 to 79 while a person of 80-year-old and above was given a pension of Rs 500 only.
Kumar urged the bench that pension amount should at least be half of the minimum wages fixed by the government, which comes at around Rs 3,000 a month.
Kumar, who told the apex court that he had "failed" as a parliamentarian and minister but did not want to fail as a citizen, said that in 2007 the Centre had fixed Rs 200 as pension to senior citizens aged between 60 to 79 while a person of 80-year-old and above was given a pension of Rs 500 only. Kumar urged the bench that pension amount should at least be half of the minimum wages fixed by the government, which comes at around Rs 3,000 a month. Responding to this, Additional Solicitor General A N S Nadkarni, appearing for the Centre, said, "A pension is not earned like minimum wages. It cannot be equated with minimum wages. We just cannot draw money from other places".
Courtesy/By: Shubham Mathur
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02 Dec 2018
