E-Paper
HC disposes of plea against Raghav Chadha’s appointment as Punjab’s new advisory panel head
The HC disposed of the plea against Raghav Chadha’s appointment as Punjab’s new advisory panel head asking the government to decide representation of the petitioner against this move, in a time bound manner and communicate the same to the petitioner
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday disposed of a plea challenging Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha’s appointment as chairman of state’s advisory panel.
The order was passed by chief justice RS Jha and justice Arun Palli on the plea of an advocate, Jagmohan Singh Bhatti, who had claimed that the decision was “illegal,” “arbitrary”, and “in exercise of non-existent laws of the state and central governments” and had sought quashing of the same.
Chadha, an “outsider not being a part of the state Legislative Assembly”, was being given a minister rank, in violation of the Constitution, Bhatti had argued.
The plea was disposed of asking government to decide representation of the petitioner against this move, in a time bound manner and communicate the same to the petitioner senior advocate Gurminder Singh, who appeared for the state and Bhatti, the petitioner lawyer, confirmed after the hearing. Detailed order is awaited.
The plea was disposed of as state’s counsel Gurminder Singh had submitted that the appointment was proposed by the chief minister, Bhagwant Mann. It has been ratified by state’s cabinet and a notification is yet to be issued, he said, adding that the state was not “spending even a penny from its resources on this appointment and advice would be rendered as and when asked for,”. “It has been done in accordance with the law and established procedure,” Singh said.
Bhatti said after the hearing that court questioned the state on the constitutionality of the appointment and whether it was required and asked when it has over 90 elected representatives, “why someone who is not even an MLA was given the post”, Bhatti claimed. The bench also had questions whether such powers could be delegated.
The government last month had announced that constitution of a temporary panel headed by Chadha would “advice on matters of public importance pertaining to public administration” as and when asked for.
Bhatti’s argument was that the decision was in violation of the constitutional mandate and amounts to a “parallel government within the government”, which was not permissible.
Bhatti also claimed that chief secretary had no such power to issue a “notification regarding the temporary advisory committee”. Bhatti had also claimed that an additional burden on the state public exchequer would be imposed by way of providing the staff and infrastructure with this appointment. He had sought directions to the chief secretary that no financial benefits be extended to Chadha.
