Editor Mr.Mayank Rawat ( Chief Editor Mr. Rohit Mishra )
New Delhi: In a major relief to bureaucrats, investigations against them pending in Delhi Assembly’s various committees were disposed of by the legislative body through a resolution on Thursday. The probes launched by the previous govt during the tenure of the sixth and seventh assemblies will, therefore, not be extended to the current eighth assembly. There are committee investigations pending against govt officials, one of them being the alleged role of chief secretary Naresh Kumar, finance secretary A C Verma and other officials in delaying the presentation of the 2023-24 state budget.
On Thursday, speaker Vijender Gupta announced in the assembly, “I have reviewed the cases pending before the committees and have come to the conclusion that these cases should not have been forwarded to them by govt.”
The Committee on Privileges has 59 cases pending from the sixth assembly (2015-2025) and 69 from the seventh (2020-2025). Similarly, the Committee on Petitions had 107 cases pending from the sixth assembly and 72 cases from the seventh, while the Committee on Questions and References had four cases pending from the seventh assembly.
Under the rules, the committee is required to submit its findings within one month. “Ideally, if the complaints were genuine, the committees should have investigated these cases and reported them to the House. However, the reasons for which they were kept pending by the then members of the committees are best known to them,” remarked Gupta.
The committees have not held meetings to discuss some of the cases since 2016. In other cases, officials have sought protection of the courts and eight of the cases brought to the assembly committees are now before Delhi High Court.
The speaker said, “I feel that the committees of the eighth legislative assembly should start with a clean slate and not get entangled in cases that appear to be motivated. We need to consider whether it befits the legislature or its committees to keep govt officials, some of whom have now retired, under stress.”
Given this, Gupta requested the House on Thursday to consider whether these cases should be carried forward or dropped. Accordingly, BJP chief whip Abhay Verma moved a resolution in this regard.
The resolution said, “Whereas, certain cases involving officials of Delhi govt have also led to the filing of cases in the High Court of Delhi, therefore, this House resolves that no further action be taken on the pending cases referred to the Committee on Privileges, the Committee on Petitions, and the Committee on Questions and References during the sixth and seventh legislative assemblies and that they be considered as disposed of.” The House then passed the resolution, effectively terminating the investigation of pending cases by the various assembly committees.
Mayank Rawat
