The Aam Aadmi Party-led (AAP) government on Monday stripped Karawal Nagar legislator Kapil Mishra of the Law Ministry portfolio, handing it to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in what it officially claimed was a ‘routine rejig in legislative roles’.
The move not only added another significant portfolio to the existing half a dozen which Mr. Sisodia already has on his plate, but culminated in the appointment of the third Law Minister from the six-member AAP cabinet in six months.
A senior government official attributed the move to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to ensure that Mr. Mishra, who also heads the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) as its chairman and holds the Tourism portfolio, had ‘more time to concentrate’ on those. But government sources claimed otherwise.
“The Chief Minister feels that he (Mr. Mishra) lacks the technical skills required to head the law portfolio and someone senior from the cabinet needed to replace him,” an official told The Hindu .
A government source said Mr. Kejriwal was understood to be miffed at Mr. Mishra’s decision to “leak the letter” related to the recommendation of a criminal case against former Chief Minister Sheila Diskhit in relation to her alleged role in the water tanker scam estimated to be worth Rs. 400 crore last week.
“There was no legal basis for the allegation and there was no need for the letter to have been leaked to the public domain,” the source said adding that this seemed to be the reason behind the government withholding the report from the Directorate of Vigilance (DoV) so far.
Meanwhile, sources in the DJB said Mr. Mishra's removal seemed to have been in the works for sometime which he had made clear in the leaked letter where he said that he was “afraid his recommendation” could lead to his removal.
A senior DJB official said neither the enquiry report – which had elicited dissenting notes from top officials at its helm -- into the alleged scam nor the probe into it had moved an inch despite having been submitted to the government over a month ago. Repeated attempts to contact Mr. Mishra were unfruitful.
The CM feels that he lacks the technical skills required to
head the law portfolio
