Himachal high court to hear plea challenging appointment of CPS on a day-to-day basis
The division bench comprising justice Vivek Singh Thakur and justice BC Negi heard the arguments on the petition filed by People for Responsible Governance (PERGO) on Monday
The Himachal Pradesh high court will commence the hearing on the petition challenging the appointments of chief parliamentary secretaries on a day-to-day basis, starting from Thursday.
The division bench comprising justice Vivek Singh Thakur and justice BC Negi heard the arguments on the petition filed by People for Responsible Governance (PERGO) on Monday. Three separate petitions were filed challenging the legality and constitutionality of the appointments of chief parliamentary secretaries in the state. The court has already completed hearings on the petition filed by the BJP legislators and by one Kalpana Devi and reserved its judgment.
The court in its earlier orders has prohibited chief parliamentary secretaries from availing the facilities of ministers and functioning like ministers. Sanjay Awasthi from Arki assembly constituency, Sundar Singh from Kullu, Ram Kumar from Doon, Mohan Lal Brakta from Rohru, Ashish Butail from Palampur and Kishori Lal from Baijnath have been challenged.
A division bench comprising justice Vivek Thakur and justice Sandeep Sharma on January 4 passed an interim order debarring the six chief parliamentary secretaries appointed by chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu from availing the facilities given to cabinet rank minister.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had maintained in the petition that there is no provision for the post of chief parliamentary secretaries in the Constitution and under Article 164, not more than 15% of the cabinet can be formed in the state, which is 12 in Himachal, but after the appointment of chief parliamentary secretaries, this number reaches 18. In a bid to buy time, the Congress government filed the transfer petition in the Supreme Court under Article 139-A of the Constitution. It has requested that the petition of Kalpana Devi vs Government of Himachal Pradesh and others, Satpal Singh Satti vs Government of Himachal, Kalpana Devi, and NGO People for Responsible Governance vs state government and others, be transferred to the apex court. However, the request was turned down.
