In a setback to the State Government, the Uttarakhand High Court has stayed the Government’s attempt to shift the Government offices from Narendra Nagar to New Tehri for the time being. In an interim order, the court instructed the State Government not to go ahead on the supposed move till July 19 and asked it to file its affidavit by July 20.
The court ordered this while taking cognizance of a PIl lodged by one Wachastpati Rayal. The latter appealed to the High Court to stay things saying that the move initiated by the Tehri DM to shift the Government offices will land the people of Narendra Nagar in difficulty. Interestingly, the dissident Congress MlA Subodh Uniyal who after being disqualified switched to BJP represented Narendra Nagar.
Ironically, State Cabinet Minister and Tehri MlA Dinesh Dhanai’s son Kanak Singh Dhanai filed a counter-PIl on the matter saying that the move was justified in the light of the fact that in 2012 then Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna had announced that these offices would be shifted to district headquarters New Tehri.
The High Court clubbed both the PIls and passed the interim order, restraining the State Government from implementing the move to shift the Government offices till further order.
In the first PIl lodged by Rayal, the applicant mentioned that a committee chaired by an IAS RS Tolia-formed under Hills development committee-had recommended that 14 offices should remain stationed in Narendra Nagar. The committee mentioned, as the first PIl referred to, that Tehri being a princely State in the past, its interests should be considered. But it should not be done at the expense of the interests of Narendranagar, the committee suggested.
Observers say that Harish Rawat Government is intent on paying Uniyal back in the same coin by crushing his electoral interests. “In case the move is implemented, the now disqualified MlA would bear the brunt of things electorally if he would re-contest from the constituency. And significantly enough, the State Government is using Vijay Bahuguna’s order to crush his acolyte,” one of the observers said.