In a big relief to Delhi Government officials, the Delhi Legislative Assembly has withdrawn all the pending inquiries by Privileges Committee, Petitions Committee and Questions and Reference Committee. The Delhi Assembly has adopted a resolution, moved by the BJP MLA Abhay Verma on Thursday.
The Delhi Assembly’s move will bring relief to at least 200 bureaucrats both serving and retired from the Delhi government. The officials include former Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, MM Kutty, Shurbir Singh, JB Singh, G Narender Kumar, Maisha Saxena, Varsha joshi, Amjad Tak, Sanjiv Khirwal, Amit Singla, Amit Singla, Jaidev Sarangi, Rupesh Thakur, Nidhi Srivastva and Ashish Verma. Notably, Most of the complaints were filed by members of the previous ruling party against officers of the Delhi Government.
“Therefore, this House resolves that no further action be taken on the pending cases referred to the Committee on Privileges, the Committee on Petitions, and the Committee on Questions and References during the Sixth and Seventh Legislative Assemblies, and that they be considered as disposed off,” Speaker Vijender Gupta said in the House while adopting the resolution.
In his resolution, Abhay Verma urged the House that “no further action should be taken on the pending cases sent to the Petition Committee, Privilege Committee, Question and Reference Committee during the sixth and seventh Assembly and they should be considered settled,” which was passed by the house.
The resolution passed by Delhi Assembly brought major relief to the many bureaucrats who were facing investigation before the Privileges Committees since last few years.
The Committee on Privileges had 59 cases pending from the Sixth Legislative Assembly and 69 cases from the Seventh Legislative Assembly.
As per Rule 223, the Committee on Privileges is generally required to submit its report within one month. Most of the complaints were filed by members of the then ruling party against officers of the Delhi Government. Similarly, the Committee on Petitions had 107 cases pending from the Sixth Legislative Assembly and 72 cases from the Seventh Legislative Assembly. The Committee on Questions and References also has 04 cases pending from the Seventh Legislative Assembly.
In a statement, Speaker Vijender Gupta said there was an attempt to target officers of the Delhi Government in these committees as well. Some cases before these committees have been pending since 2016 and no meetings have been held for their investigation. Some officers sought protection from the courts, and eight of these cases are now before the Delhi High Court.
“I feel that the Committees of the eighth Legislative Assembly should start with a clean slate and not get entangled in cases that appear to be motivated. We need to consider whether it befits the legislature or its committees to keep officers, some of whom have now retired, under stress. Therefore, I request the House to consider whether these cases should be carried forward or dropped. The Chief Whip, Abhay Verma, has given notice to move a resolution in this regard. Verma moved the resolution in this regard and made his statement. The resolution was passed,” read the statement.
