The Delhi Legislative Assembly on Wednesday constituted a nine-member panel to look into Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal’s message seeking to withdraw the powers of Department-Related Standing Committees, even as Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia termed it “unconstitutional”.
BJP stages walkout
As the House passed a resolution to this effect, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Opposition staged a walkout in protest against the move following a day-long session, which saw many Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators take part in a discussion on Mr. Baijal’s message.
The committee has eight AAP MLAs and one BJP MLA, Jagdish Pradhan, as its members and is required to present its report to the Speaker before the commencement of the next Session.
The resolution passed by the Assembly states that the committee will look into judiciousness of the L-G’s concerns regarding the functioning of the standing committees and examine unconstitutionality of Mr. Baijal’s message.
‘No discretionary power’
Responding to the discussion, Mr. Sisodia said the House committees had only been fixing accountability of the officers, and alleged that the “BJP does not believe in democracy” and supports the Executive, side-lining the interests of the people.
Citing a Supreme Court order pertaining to the Arunachal Pradesh Governor’s message to the State Assembly, Mr. Sisodia said the L-G did not have discretionary power to send a message to the Assembly without the aid and advice of the Cabinet.
“Therefore, the L-G’s message is unconstitutional and also in violation of the SC order,” he said.
Mr. Sisodia added that by fixing the accountability of officers, the Department-Related Standing Committees were just ensuring that the people did not face any problem.
Hitting out at Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta for alleging that the House committees have more power than the Lok Sabha committees, the Deputy Chief Minister said, “Law is not above the country and its people. In democracy, there is a system to fix the responsibility of the Executive.”
Harassment claims
On Mr. Gupta’s allegations that the committees were “harassing” officers by summoning them frequently,
Mr. Sisodia asserted that fixing the accountability of bureaucracy towards people was an important aspect of the democracy.
“We [the Ministers] will also appear before the committees of the House if we were summoned by them,” he said further.
On his part, Mr. Gupta sought to emphasise that the “Legislature must not step in to the shoes of the Executive”.
