Directions to chief secretary to appear before assembly panel not warranted: Delhi high court

The Delhi high court said its earlier directions to chief secretary Anshu Prakash to appear before the Delhi Assembly’s Privileges Committee were “not warranted” after a plea was filed by the panel questioning its jurisdiction to produce video recordings of the committee’s proceedings in court.

The Delhi high court on Tuesday said its earlier directions to chief secretary Anshu Prakash to appear before Delhi Assembly’s Privileges Committee were “not warranted” after a plea was filed by the House panel questioning the court’s jurisdiction to produce the video recordings of committee’s proceedings in court.

The Delhi high court had earlier directed the House panel to produce video recordings of the proceedings of the committee. (Picture for representation)

The HC had earlier directed the House panel to produce video recordings of the proceedings of the committee.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru rapped the counsel for the Assembly, after they filed an application invoking the doctrine of separation of power, which states there should be no direction from the court to a legislature or a committee that is the part of the legislature.

The application stated that the court cannot order the Privileges Committee to produce the video recording of the proceedings as it lacked the jurisdiction to do so.

“The applicant /respondent now seek to question the jurisdiction of this court to pass such directions (video recordings to be filed in court). In view of this, the direction to the petitioner to appear before the concerned committees is also not warranted,” the court said.

Appearing for the committee, senior advocate KV Vishwanathan informed the court that videography of the proceedings and the providing of the verbatim record of the same to the chief secretary was “in violation of the doctrine separation of powers”.

On this, the court remarked that on the last date of hearing, senior advocate Sudhir Nandrajog had undertaken that they would provide the video recordings.