AAP MLAs allege Chief Secy of meddling in Assembly affairs

NEW DELHI:The ruling AAP MLAs are contemplating bringing a “privilege motion” in the upcoming special session of Delhi Assembly against Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash over allegations of “threatening” officials of the Vidhan Sabha and asking them to avoid Question Hour during the three-day session scheduled to take place from June 6.

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 25

The ruling AAP MLAs are contemplating bringing a “privilege motion” in the upcoming special session of Delhi Assembly against Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash over allegations of “threatening” officials of the Vidhan Sabha and asking them to avoid Question Hour during the three-day session scheduled to take place from June 6.

Chairpersons of Assembly panels — Saurabh Bharadwaj, Rakhi Birla, Sanjeev Jha, Madan Lal and Vishesh Ravi — today said they are going to separately take up the matter with Speaker Ram Niwas Goel.

They also accused Prakash of behaving as an agent of BJP-appointed LG Anil Baijal and claimed the Chief Secretary is “pressurising” the Law Department of Delhi government to extract a wrong opinion on the statehood issue in which neither the department nor Prakash has any “locus to either seek or give an opinion”.

According to them the senior bureaucrat has no business to meddle in the affairs of the Assembly terming it “illegal” citing Article 239 AA (6) of the Constitution which states that the Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly.

The Cabinet conveys to the Assembly about when the session is to convened and the government business to be transacted and beyond that it is the sole prerogative of the Speaker how the House proceedings will be run as outlined by the Vidhan Sabha rules.

During the last sitting of the session, the Speaker had criticised the LG over his letter questioning the former’s authority on admissibility of questions raised by legislators in the House on reserved subjects in the wake of the tussle between the AAP dispensation and bureaucrats of the government in the backdrop of alleged assault on Anshu Prakash.

Goel had sought a copy of the communication from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the LG on the issue of which questions fall outside purview of the House, but no response is understood to have been received by him.