Delhi Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) Vinai Kumar Saxena on Tuesday wrote to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal refuting his Deputy Manish Sisodia's charge of favouring the BJP and urged him to restrain his Ministers from making "misleading" assertions.

Saxena was reacting to a letter by Sisodia wherein he accused the L-G of "bulldozing the law" to favour the BJP as the complaint was lodged by BJP MP Manoj Tiwari, and allowing the Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) to probe the alleged irregularities in the construction of seven temporary hospitals during the Covid pandemic.

Sisodia had asked in his letter under whose "pressure" Saxena had approved investigation by the ACB over a year old complaint when it was rejected by his predecessor Anil Baijal as "frivolous and baseless".

Saxena wrote in the letter to Kejriwal, "It is both sad and surprising to note that vide the above letter, the Deputy Chief Minister has made factually and legally incorrect statements on the subject matter while unnecessarily politicising a desirable administrative action." He reminded the Chief Minister of their agreement over "zero tolerance" towards corruption and sough his cooperation in doing so. "In the interest of good governance, I would further urge you to advise your Ministers to refrain from such unproductive and poorly-evidenced assertions, which are both misleading and obstructive in nature," he wrote.

Saxena also explained the legal position of his authority vis-a-vis the charges made against him by Sisodia. The Delhi High Court in its order on August 4, 2016 has held that according to the constitutional scheme of governance of Delhi, the "Services" fall outside the purview of the Legislative Assembly of Delhi, he said.

"This judgement still holds the field as the civil appeal filed by the elected Government on this issue is yet to be heard by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court," Saxena pointed.

The permission for conducting an enquiry into the complaint of corruption against officials of the PWD has been granted after careful examination and strictly in accordance with the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and the provisions of law as settled by the courts, he stated.

However, according to sources in the Delhi Government, granting permission for enquiry under Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act does not fall under the purview of “Services” and is within the jurisdiction of elected Government.

“PC Act gives a maximum of four months to any Government to give permission for enquiry. The fact that the previous L-G neither gave any permission nor sought advice of the elected Government in those four months indicates that he did not find any merit in the complaint,” said sources.

“For the present L-G to accuse his predecessor of sitting on such an important file and not taking a decision within the prescribed time limit is unfortunate and uncalled for. Baijal was aware of his statutory duties. His silence on the file indicates that he prima facie did not find any merit in the complaint,” sources said.

“The L-G’s office receives thousands of such frivolous complaints every day. The L-G does not write on each such complaint. He acts on serious complaints. The fact that the previous L-G did not act on it within the prescribed time limit of four months shows that he did not find it serious enough to act,” sources added.