SC to examine Didi's call

In a case that should make Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal anxious, the Supreme Court on Friday set out to examine the correctness of his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee’s decision to appoint 24 Parliamentary Secretaries with Minister of State (MoS) rank, after it was quashed by the Calcutta High Court in June this year. 

The AAP Government in Delhi has 21 Parliament Secretaries who are on par with Ministers and flash beacons. But till date nobody has approached court against them.However, in the case of West Bengal, 24 Parliament Secretaries were appointed through a law — The West Bengal Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2012 — that came into effect in 2013. They were required to maintain coordination between different Government departments. 

The Calcutta HC on a PIl set aside the entire law as unconstitutional on the ground that the State cannot arbitrarily increase the strength of Ministers, which has to be proportional to the strength of the Assembly.In its appeals challenging this order, the West Bengal Government told the apex court that the State was within its rights to enact a law appointing Parliamentary Secretaries. It further claimed that its decision fell within the executive prerogative of the State Government which knows best how to smoothly run the administration. 

The Bench, headed by Chief Justice Hl Dattu, issued notice to the two PIl petitioners and posted the matter after three weeks to decide whether the HC order required to be stayed. The HC categorically found the State law to be violative of Clause 1(A) of Article 164 of Constitution. It agreed with the petitioners Vishak Bhattacharya and Pushpal Chakraborty that the number of Ministers cannot exceed 15 per cent of the number of MlAs. The strength of Ministers in the House cannot exceed 44 as the present Assembly has 294 MlAs. By bringing in Parliamentary Secretaries, the existing Ministerial strength shot up from 45 to 69, thus breaching the Constitution.