The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to examine an interesting question on whether the Chief Minister has a constitutional duty to go through and sign each file himself/herself or his/her Secretariat comprising bureaucrats can do so on his behalf.
This question caught the attention of a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Rohington F Nariman, which appointed senior advocate and former Attorney General Ashok Desai to assist them on this issue while posting the matter for hearing in the middle of September.
The issue emanated out of an appeal filed by the Uttar Pradesh Government challenging a May 28, 2014 order passed by the Allahabad High Court which decided to refer the issue to a larger bench. The order came on a PIl by one Nutan Thakur who alleged that signatures put on official files in the name of Chief Minister not only violates the Rules of Business for Conduct of Work in Secretariat but also opens possibility of misuse or abuse of authority by bureaucrats.
The State Government, represented by senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan and advocate Ravi Prakash Mehrotra argued that the State was open to the issue being decided by the Supreme Court as it concerned the Conduct of Business Rules of every state government in the country, and not just UP. The state insisted that the Rules of Business are silent on whether CM must mandatorily sign each file although in some cases, relating to appointment of judges, Ordinances, Cabinet decisions and releasing of detenues, his signature is mandatory. Moreover, he added, “A Chief Minister has to deal with 58000 files in a year. It poses a practical difficulty.”
Dhavan insisted on appointing an independent amicus curiae as he felt that seeking assistance from Attorney General on the issue would be opposed by the state government, particularly since the state was heading to assembly elections early next year.