With Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar becoming the latest civil servant to be summoned by the assembly’s committee on petitions on Monday, the jurisdiction of such panels has come under the spotlight.
Opposition leaders say the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government is misusing the powers of assembly committees, while the capital’s ruling party claims the panels are looking into alleged irregularities.
The Delhi assembly has over 20 panels comprising legislators that are either constituted by the speaker or the House. These are recommendatory bodies that deal with aspects related to finance, public grievances, and the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), among others. “We call them mini legislatures, because the work of the House is distributed among them since the latter does not have the time to assess various aspects in detail,” a senior Delhi government official said to ThePrint.
The committee on petitions deals with representations of the public, which are forwarded by various MLAs to the assembly speaker, who decides whether the committee can consider and take up the matters. Kumar is not the only officer to be summoned by an assembly panel since May 19, when the central government promulgated its ordinance for Delhi, which, in effect, negates a Supreme Court ruling that the government has control over bureaucrats in the administration of services.
In the past week itself, the petition committee has summoned former services secretary Ashish More (removed from the post last month) and divisional commissioner Ashwani Kumar on a complaint alleging irregularities in land transfer.
Simultaneously, the committee on the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes summoned Y.V.V.J. Rajasekhar, special secretary, vigilance, who is at loggerheads with the AAP government.
