The ongoing war between lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over administrative control of the City Government has reached a new high with Raj Niwas replacing Indian Revenue Service officer Sukesh Jain as the power secretary and the AAP Government revoking l-G’s directive to scrap the appointment of former IRS officer Krishna Saini as the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission chairperson.
Kejriwal also alleged a “conspiracy” by the BJP-led Centre to increase power tariff in the Capital, and assured that he would not let the tariffs rise. “We have not increased power tariff in last two years. The BJP is trying to increase the electricity prices in Delhi, but I won’t let this happen,” he said.
Kejriwal said, “The DERC chief had issued many orders in the past eight months, fixing the accountability of power companies. Power companies want the DERC chief to be removed. After eight months (of appointment) the l-G wakes up and is saying his approval was not taken for DERC’s chief appointment.”
“The file from l-G’s office came to me a week ago and I was in the process of consulting legal experts. On November 3 night, (former) Power Secretary Sukesh Jain got a call from the l-G’s office asking him to cancel Saini’s appointment notification. The lG’s office called him again on Friday morning to put pressure. Who put pressure on the l-G to resort to such illegal and unconstitutional stepsIJ The BJP-led Centre wants Ambani’s person as DERC chief,” alleged Kejriwal, adding “we will fight and resist any such move”.
Sources in Raj Niwas, however, said that the file pertaining to the appointment of Saini was sent five times to the APP Government to follow due procedures in his appointment as the DERC chairperson. “But there was no response from the Government,” they said.
Sources in the l-G office also claimed the Government was needlessly dragging it into the case, which it said amounted to undermining constitutional and judicial authorities as the Delhi High Court has already upheld the l-G’s order on the DERC appointment issue.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP slammed Kejriwal for indulging in a war of words with Jung and the Centre instead of trying to find a solution to the issue of air pollution.
Meanwhile, a 1995-batch IAS officer of AGMUT cadre, Varsha Joshi, has replaced Jain, a 1992-batch IRS officer, as the Power Secretary of Delhi. While Secretary (Environment) Chandrakar Bharti was also transferred but his transfer order was withdrawn by late on Friday evening.
“The l-G is pleased to post Varsha Joshi, IAS, (AGMUT) 1995 as secretary (power) with additional charge of secretary (environment & forest) with immediate effect relieving Sukesh Kumar Jain and Chandrakar Bharti, IAS, 1996-batch from the additional charge,” said an order to this effect issued by T Sreekanth, Special Secretary (Services). The copy of the order was also forwarded to the Union Home Ministry and Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
Joshi took the new charge Saturday. She was earlier posted at Central deputation and was serving as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy. Jain, who is considered close to Kejriwal, will continue to serve as the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the Delhi CM. Jain was appointed secretary (power) last year.