Patna, Jan. 3: People’s representatives in the state seem to have the right to flout any deadline, especially if it is of submitting asset details.

Three days after the last date for filing the property details lapsed, Speaker Uday Narain Choudhary today said: “All the MLAs will file their asset declaration. Late by a few days does not matter.”

According to Choudhary, 112 MLAs had filed their declarations in the office of the Assembly secretariat.

Of the 243 legislators in the Assembly, 23 are ministers. They submit their asset details to the cabinet co-ordination department. The rest of the 220 MLAs are supposed to furnish their asset details to the secretary of the House.

The chairpersons of Bihar Legislative Assembly and Bihar Legislative Council had issued a directive, asking the MLAs and MLCs to submit a list of their movable and unmovable assets by December 31 after chief minister Nitish Kumar stressed last year that there should be transparency about the legislators’ assets.

Officials of the Assembly secretariat said the number of MLAs submitting their asset declaration increased today. “But a large number of MLAs are yet to submit their declaration,” said an official of the secretariat.

He said the declarations made by the MLAs would be put on the Assembly’s website soon.

“We can keep adding the names of the MLAs as they keep filing their declaration papers,” he said, stressing that it may take the whole of January to have the declarations of all the MLAs.

The Leader of the Opposition, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, iterated he would be filing his declaration within a couple of days but he was keen to know the source of income of ministers’ spouses and kin, a day after their asset details were uploaded on the website yesterday.

The RJD and the LJP have demanded an impartial probe into the declaration made by the ministers.

“While the assets of deputy chief minister has increased, the property of the chief minister has not. The chief minister does not draw his salaries, or what?” asked RJD MP Ramkripal Yadav.

He said the declaration of most of the ministers indicated that the income and assets of their spouses were more than theirs. The assets and income of unemployed kin of several ministers had also shown “unnatural growth”, he added.

“A probe by an independent agency into the asset declarations made by the ministers will only help the government establish its credibility before the people,” Yadav said.