Delhi lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung has appointed a three-member panel to examine over 400 files allegedly containing “infirmities and irregularities” in taking decisions that were submitted to him by the Delhi Government.
Jung has been having a long-running battle with the Aam Aadmi Party-led Government on a host of jurisdictional issues and the files were submitted after a Delhi High Court judgment held that Delhi continues to be a Union Territory and the lG is its administrative head.
The panel, comprising former CAG VK Shunglu, former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar, has been asked to submit its final report within six weeks of its first meeting.
Incidentally, VK Shunglu had probed irregularities in projects related to the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the findings of the report had led to the downfall of the then Sheila Dikshit Government in 2013.
Reacting to the l-G’s decision to set up the panel, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, “let an independent 3 member committee scrutinise all files cleared by Modiji also n let’s compare the results. This is witch-hunting. like they arrested MlAs on false cases, they will victimise officers now.”
In another order, Jung has given specific directions for transfers and postings of officers of IAS, DANICS and DASS cadres, Principal Private Secretaries, while suspending all previous orders of the AAP Government.
In the order, Jung said the lG will be the approving authority for transfers and postings of IAS, DANICS, All-India Services officers, equivalent officers of Central Civil Services.
Jung has also ordered withdrawal of the Delhi Government’s suspension order of the Chief Minister’s former Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar. The Home Ministry had termed “illegal” the Kejriwal Government’s suspension order of Kumar and asked it to withdraw it as the MHA is the competent authority to suspend an IAS officer.
According to Raj Niwas sources, several orders issued without the views/approval of Jung were also held to be illegal by the Delhi High Court. “The committee has been tasked to look into omissions and commissions in the decision-making process and also to fix responsibility of individuals, including civil and criminal liability, if any,” said the sources.
The committee has been tasked to determine whether the decisions taken in these files and the processes adopted were in violation of the Acts/Rules and the constitutional scheme for Governance of GNCT of Delhi. The panel will also recommend appropriate administrative/criminal/civil action as well as action for recovery of financial loss to the Government exchequer, if any, by such wrong decisions against the public functionaries/officers/individuals concerned. It will also recommend the course of action to be taken on each of the files/proposals including whether the decisions can or cannot be regularized by the lG.
The panel will also outline the administrative, legal and financial repercussions of regularization/non-regularization of the decisions and make any other recommendation relevant in the above context including further inquiry into specific cases.
After the HC’s August 4 judgment, Principal Secretaries and heads of departments of the city Government were directed by Jung to review instances where his prior approval was required as per rules, but was not obtained. As a result, 400 files have been received by the lG’s Secretariat for ex-post facto approval of Jung and some more files are awaited.
According to Raj Niwas’s statement, on preliminary scrutiny of these files, it is found that over the last one-and-a-half-years several decisions taken were in violation of Acts/Rules with attendant legal and financial implications.