E-Paper
Show-cause notice for removal: HC gives Mohali mayor 15 more days to respond
The Punjab and Haryana high court has given Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu 15 more days to respond to the show-cause notice issued to him over his alleged membership of a firm that has been carrying out development works in the city
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday gave Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu 15 more days to respond to the show-cause notice issued to him over his alleged membership of a firm that has been carrying out development works in the city.
The high court bench of justice Sudhir Mittal had passed the order, while hearing the mayor’s plea, who had challenged the September 15 notice issued to him by the local bodies department. However, he later withdrew the petition challenging the show-cause notice.
Seeking a response in two weeks, the notice, issued by local bodies principal secretary Vivek Pratap Singh, had asked Sidhu why he should not be removed from the post of councillor under Section 36 (F) of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act for violating Section 63 of the Act.
Under Section 63 of the Act, a councillor cannot vote in a matter in which he has personal advantage.
The notice had been issued a month after some Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors lodged a complaint with the department, alleging a conflict of interest at the mayor’s end, as most of city’s development works were allotted to a firm — Amritpreet Cooperative Society Limited, Phase 6 — that he himself was a member of.
It was alleged that civic work worth crores had been allotted to the cooperative society, and the decision to do so had been taken by the finance and contract committee of the municipal corporation, which is headed by him.
The mayor had shot back calling the allegations “political vendetta.” Elected as councillor on a Congress ticket in 2021, Sidhu in June this year, along with his brother and former health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, had switched to the BJP. Yet he continues to remain in the mayor’s chair, purportedly with the support of Congress councillors, who hold 36 seats in the 50-member MC House.
