223 DCW staffers sacked, move triggers political row

The move prompted backlash from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which attacked the LG and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), escalating the war of words.

The department of women and child development (DWCD) removed 223 contractual staff engaged by the Delhi commission for women (DCW) with immediate effect, after an approval from the lieutenant governor VK Saxena, as the staff was “engaged without having sanctioned posts and without following due procedures”, according to an order dated April 29.

Former DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal consoles a contractual worker who was dismissed. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

The move prompted backlash from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which attacked the LG and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), escalating the war of words and adding to a series of stand-offs over multiple administrative issues.

AAP ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj took to social media to register their disapproval, targeting the LG and BJP.

AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP and former DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal also opposed the “counterproductive” move made on “frivolous grounds”, saying: “The LG sahab has issued a Tughlaqi order to remove all contractual staff of DCW”.

In response, the LG’s office said the decision to remove the staffers was taken by DWCD.

“The LG has issued no orders regarding the sacking of DCW staff. It has been done by DWCD which is completely under the Delhi government over irregularities. A deliberate and premeditated exercise was carried out by a certain individual and her party to falsely attribute the issue at hand to LG in the media,” an official in the LG’s office said.

DWCD, in an order signed by additional director Navlendra Kumar Singh, said: “... DCW has violated the statutory provisions of DCW Act 1994 and various standing instructions of the department of finance & planning by creating 223 posts and engaging staff without following due procedure... no study was conducted to assess the actual requirement of additional staff and eligibility criteria for each post, no administrative approval and expenditure sanctioned was obtained from the Delhi government and applications for such posts were not formally invited.”

“... taking cognizance of all these regularities and illegalities made by DCW, the hon’ble lieutenant governor has approved the proposal of the department that the appointments of contractual staff engaged in DCW without having sanctioned posts and without following due procedures is void-ab-nitio and the same cannot be allowed to continue in DCW,” the order, a copy of which was seen by HT, said.

A Delhi government official said DCW created 223 additional contractual posts in September 2016 and in the same month, the DWCD apprised the DCW that grantee institutions (organisation that receives a grant) should not undertake activity which entails additional financial liabilities for the government without the approval of the administrative department and finance department. DWCD is the administrative department of DCW.

In 2017, the then LG Anil Baijal constituted a committee headed by the chief secretary which submitted a report on alleged irregularities in DCW, flagging “large-scale administrative and financial irregularities

In February 2024, the DWCD wrote to the law department seeking its opinion on steps to be taken, as matter was also sub judice and accordingly, the law department advised that they should be discontinued.

Officials aware of the matter said that action was then initiated to remove the staff, but they could not explain the reason for the six-year delay.

Expressing concern for women who lost their livelihoods, Maliwal said many of them are survivors of crimes, acid attacks and domestic violence, who have dedicated their time and energy to serving other women. “Some of the employees who lost their jobs because of the order were orphans living in shelter homes, and were employed in DCW,” she said.

“The move of LG to remove the staff of the DCW is against the women and girls of Delhi. They are trying to gag the commission. If the order is implemented, DCW programmes like 181 women helpline, rape crisis cell, crisis intervention centre, mahila panchayat, acid attack and rehabilitation cell and others will close down. If they have anything against me, let them put ED, CBI behind me, let them put me in jail. But I will not allow them to play with the safety and security of women and girls of the Capital,” she said.

AAP minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a post on X: “Delhi’s LG sahab has rendered thousands of people unemployed in Delhi in the last 1.5 years. His aim is to stop all the good work of the Delhi government. Empowering these oppressed girls is true patriotism, humanity, the ultimate religion.”

There was no response from DCW, which currently does not have a chairperson.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said: “Unconstitutional anarchic working of the AAP government and DCW chairperson is responsible for contractual employees losing jobs. We can understand that Swati Maliwal needed staff for DCW, but why did she never try to get the posts sanctioned?”

“Maliwal treated DCW as her personal fiefdom and kept volunteers of her NGOs, mostly from other states, on contractual jobs in DCW... Without following any procedure, contractual jobs were doled out and today, when they are being removed, AAP leaders are playing their old blame game,” he said.