After the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed their appointments recently, the four Chief Parliamentary Secretaries appointed in the BJP-led Haryana Government on Tuesday submitted their resignation to Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar.
The High Court had on July 5 set aside the appointments of four BJP MlAs as Chief Parliamentary Secretaries in Haryana. The court’s decision was a major setback for the BJP -led Haryana Government, which was already under fire from the opposition for making such “unconstitutional” appointments.
All four CPS including BJP Badkhal MlA Seema Trikha, Radaur MlA Shyam Singh Rana, Hisar MlA Kamal Gupta and Asandh MlA Bakhshish Singh Virk have now submitted their resignations to the Chief Minister.
Although the HC had given a relief of three weeks for the operation of the order on the State’s request, the Haryana Government has decided not to approach the Supreme Court to challenge the HC order.
Confirming the development, Subhash Barala, Haryana BJP chief and MlA Tohana said the party had decided not to approach the Supreme Court against the orders of HC and accordingly, the four CPS had submitted their resignations to the Chief Minister on Tuesday.
On a possibility of Cabinet expansion and reshuffle to adjust these BJP MlAs in the Government, Barala ruled out any such move by the party.
Chief Minister Manohar lal had administered oath to these four party legislators as Chief Parliamentary Secretaries on July 23, 2015.
The judgment of a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court earlier this month had come on a PIl filed by a lawyer, Jagmohan Singh Bhatti, who had filed the litigation shortly after the four were appointed Chief Parliamentary Secretaries in 2015.
Bhatti had contended that the State was spending lakhs of rupees of public money on paying for the salaries, perks and facilities of these secretaries, who were de-facto ministers.
However, the Haryana Government had countered the claims saying the four chief parliamentary secretaries were not getting the salary or allowances provided to Ministers and were also not included in the category of Ministers.
The State had also argued that the four were appointed in public interest to assist the Ministers in view of their multifarious duties.
Significantly, Chief Parliamentary Secretaries are often appointed on these posts by various State Governments to accommodate MlAs since all cannot be made Ministers due to a statutory ceiling of 15 per cent on ministerial berths vis-a- vis the respective assembly strength. The Chief Minister had already written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Central Government to review the 91st constitutional amendment, which puts a 15 percent cap on the size of the council of ministers in states.
The CM, in his letter had stated that the 15 percent cap on the size of the cabinet was to the disadvantage of the states which have smaller legislatures.
Earlier in August last year, Punjab and Haryana High Court had also quashed the appointment of the chief parliamentary secretaries made by the previous SAD-BJP Government in April 2012.