This is for the second time that the High Court sought responses from the Centre, the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung — on a plea seeking cancellation of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s order appointing 21 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries to ministers.
The response will have to be filed by October 7. The court had earlier issued the same notice on May 20 and the date for filing the responses was July 1, which all the parties failed to do.
The matter came up before the division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath.
The Public Interest Litigation had sought the quashing of the order on the basis of it being, “unconstitutional, illegal and without jurisdiction.”
Around 21 MLAs, appointed by the Chief Minister on March 13, to serve as secretaries to various ministries were alleged to be in violation of the Constitutional provisions of Article 239 AA of the Constitution of India and Section 44 (2) and (3) of the Transaction of Business of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi rules, 1993.
“No prior sanction was obtained from the finance department regarding the expenditure to be incurred on the Parliamentary Secretaries for using transport facilities and additional establishment cost and expenses as is mandatorily required under the Transaction of Business of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi rules, 1993,” said the petition.
The PIL had sought the quashing of the order on the basis of it being, “unconstitutional, illegal and without jurisdiction”
