The Delhi government is more than peeved at Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung for allowing ‘his politics to trump basic administrative courtesy’.
Mr. Jung has been abroad for over a week and is scheduled to fly back to the Capital, which is in the midst of a dengue crisis, on Monday.
“Though he is away on vacation, he got enough time to issue orders warning government employees not to listen to us, exhibiting his zeal to practice politics, but hasn’t even once called to seek an update on the condition of the dengue endemic,” complained a senior government functionary.
On Thursday, the L-G’s office had issued a memo directing government employees not to comply with any directions issued to them by the government in relation to a Commission set up to probe the CNG Fitness Scam among others.
“While everyone is entitled to go on vacation — no one could have predicted that the dengue situation would get so bad — the LG has shown that he is always willing to practice politics,” said another official.
“He can issue orders which are grossly motivated by political considerations but hasn’t called the Chief Minister or the Health Minister even once to help figure out a way to prevail over the dengue crisis,” the official added.
Officials of the municipal corporations were a grumbling lot over the weekend, with their leaves and days off being cancelled so they could oversee the anti-dengue measures.
With the casualties from the vector-borne disease rising, the civic bodies decided to ramp up fumigation, checking for mosquito breeding and sanitation. Also, the BJP-led corporations were told by the AAP-ruled Delhi Government that steps taken to deal with the disease should be seen by all.
So, not only were Saturday and Sunday working days, senior officials were out on the streets to personally oversee the fumigation drive. A senior South Delhi Municipal Corporation official said that the political leadership couldn’t be seen taking the spurt in dengue cases lightly, especially since they were getting a lot of flak for not being on top of the situation.
Seldom does the government oppose withdrawal of a petition in the court as vehemently as it did in the Delhi High Court last week in the high-profile case of suspension of registration of environmental group Greenpeace India under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
While Greenpeace sought the Court’s permission to withdraw its writ petition challenging suspension of its FCRA registration and freezing of its bank accounts after it obtained relief from the Madras High Court, the Ministry of Home Affairs accused the NGO of indulging in “forum shopping” by approaching different courts in the same case.
Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for MHA, said the Ministry was caught by surprise by the stance of Greenpeace, as the matter pertaining to its FCRA registration was being dealt with in Delhi. Moving the Madras High Court, Greenpeace had reportedly claimed that since its offices and records were located in Chennai, it would be convenient for it to fight the case there.
However, the Delhi High Court observed that Greenpeace, having chosen not to pursue its writ petition, could not be forced to fight the case. The Court allowed the environmental group to withdraw its petition, as it contended that the case in Delhi had become infructuous after the Madras High Court granted interim stay on cancellation of its FCRA registration.
(Contributed by Jatin Anand, Damini Nath and Mohammad Iqbal)
