New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought responses from the Centre, Delhi Lieutenant Governor and the AAP government here on a plea seeking quashing of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s order appointing 21 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries to ministers.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and R S Endlaw also sought responses from the 21 AAP MLAs on the public interest litigation (PIL) which claimed that the appointment was “unconstitutional, illegal and without jurisdiction”.
“You (all respondents) take instruction over the issue and file your counter affidavit,” the bench said, adding that “the matter requires consideration, so the replies are necessary”.
The court has now listed the matter for July 1, before which all the authorities concerned are supposed to file their response.
The court was hearing the petition filed by NGO ‘Rashtriya Mukti Morcha’, which has sought direction to Ministry of Home Affairs, Kejriwal and LG Najeeb Jung to restrain the 21 Delhi Legislative Members from acting as Parliamentary Secretaries (PS) till the “final adjudication” of the plea.
The PIL has sought quashing of Kejriwal’s March 13 decision, saying the Chief Minister issued “unconstitutional and illegal order appointing 21 MLAs as PS in gross violation of the constitutional provisions of Article 239 AA of the Constitution of India and Section 44(2) and (3) of the Transaction of Business of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi rules, 1993.”
It further alleged that Kejriwal has unconstitutionally and illegally administered oath of office and secrecy on April 27 to the 21 MLAs as PS “without any authority of laws and as such is ab-initio void”.
Some of the MLAs appointed as parliamentary secretaries include Praveen Kumar, attached as PS to the education minister, Sharad Kumar as PS to the revenue minister, Adarsh Shastri to the IT minister, Madan Lal to the vigilance minister, Shiv Charan Goel to the finance minister, Sanjeev Jha to the transport minister, Sarita Singh to the employment minister, Naresh Yadav to the labour minister, Jarnail Singh to the development minister, Rajesh Gupta, Rajesh Rishi and Anil Kumar Bajpai to the health minister.
Soon after coming to power, the government issued an order to appoint 21 AAP MLAs as parliamentary secretaries attached to the ministries.
The AAP government claimed this would facilitate smooth functioning but made it clear that they would not receive any remuneration or perks of any kind from the government, implying there would meaning no burden on the exchequer.
The order, however, permits them to use government transport for official purposes and earmarked space in the minister’s office to help them in official work.
The move had attracted severe criticism from BJP, which claimed it was just a way to assuage the ambitions of the MLAs since the NCT Act provides an upper limit on the number of ministers in Delhi government. (PTI)
