Perovskites have emerged as interesting photocatalytic materials due to the structural flexibility and narrow band gaps. In present work, effect of metal ion substitution into the lattice of La-Mn perovskite has been studied. The metal doped quaternary perovskites LaMn0.2M0.2Fe0.6O3 (M = Cr3+, Co2+, Ni2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+) has been fabricated using sol-gel autocombustion route. The presence of substituted ions i.e Cr, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn has been confirmed using EDS analysis. Powder XRD technique has been employed for confirming the orthorhombic crystal structure and purity of the substituted perovskites. TEM images indicated the formation of nanoparticles of size range 30-60 nm. The band gaps of quaternary perovskites has been estimated using UV-vis diffused reflectance spectroscopy and were found to be in the range of 2.19-2.51 eV. Both size and narrow band gaps of synthesized quaternary perovskites were suitable for using them as photocatalysts for the degradation of cationic and anionic dyes. Except for chromium ion substitution, all the other metal ions exhibited enhanced photocatalytic properties for dye degradation. The increase in photocatalytic ability can be attributed to the generation of vacancy defects and smaller band gap values resulted from the divalent metal ion substitutions. Among the various metal ion substituted La-Mn perovskites, zinc substituted perovskites exhibited maximum photocatalytic ability. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.