Haryana panel summons 3 ACS rank officers

The departments against which the eight-member assembly panel has launched proceedings are agriculture and farmers’ welfare, development and panchayats, office of the chief secretary, home, urban local bodies and health

: The Haryana Vidhan Sabha committee dealing with violation of protocol norms has decided to summon additional chief secretary (ACS) rank officers of three departments which despite reminders didn’t supply answers of the queries MLAs had asked.

Haryana panel summons 3 ACS rank officers (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The ‘committee on violation of protocol norms and contemptuous behaviour of government officers with members of Haryana Vidhan Sabha’ being headed by BJP MLA Aseem Goel had received a reference from assembly speaker Gian Chand Gupta that six departments of the state government, including the office of the chief secretary, had prima facie violated the protocol norms.

The departments against which the eight-member assembly panel has launched proceedings are agriculture and farmers’ welfare, development and panchayats, office of the chief secretary, home, urban local bodies and health.

At the centre of this protocol violation matter is the amendment in rules of the assembly under which an MLA can now ask three questions every month from any department of the state government when the assembly is not in session.

The Rule 45-A of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Haryana Legislative Assembly makes it mandatory for the concerned department to furnish a reply of a query to the MLA within 21 days.

However, as reported in HT earlier, speaker Gupta decided to send the reference in question to the committee after the vidhan sabha secretariat didn’t receive the replies of “some queries” from the six departments despite “multiple reminders”.

“The committee held its meeting on Tuesday and decided to summon three ACS rank officers to appear before the committee on December 20. This is a serious matter concerning the decorum of an institution. The departments not responding to the reminders of the vidhan sabha is very surprising,” said Aseem Goel, chairman of the committee, when contacted over phone.

Other members of this panel are Bharat Bhushan Batra (Congress), Parmod Kumar Vij (BJP), Mohan Lal Badoli (BJP), Jogi Ram Sihag (JJP), Narender Gupta (BJP), Nayan Pal Rawat (Independent), and Renu Bala (Congress).

According to Batra, the Congress MLA and member of the panel, the committee decided to first summon only three officers to appear before the panel on December 20.

“We will seek explanation of the officers. Why the departments have not responded to the query of the MLA? Why this delay in the reply?” said Batra.

Committee chairman Goel said the departments should have responded to the reminders even if they had “any difficulty” in furnishing the information of the query of the MLAs.

“Instead, the departments decided to sit tight over the matter which is a violation of the rules,” Goel said.

As per assembly records, the Congress MLAs Jagbir Singh Malik (Gohana segment), Varun Chaudhry (Mullana), Neeraj Sharma (Faridabad NIT), the INLD MLA Abhay Singh Chautala (Ellenabad) and the BJP’s Ateli segment MLA Sita Ram Yadav had sent queries on Septemmber 14. After the departments did not furnish the answers, the vidhan sabha sent reminders on October 11 and November 9.