Delhi Assembly votes to withdraw committee cases against govt officials

New Delhi

The Delhi Assembly on Thursday, through a voice vote, withdrew all pending committee cases against Delhi government officials that were initiated by the sixth and seventh assemblies by using the powers of the Privileges & Petitions Committees on a range of issues, including the privileges of legislators.

Under Rule 183 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, any incomplete work of a committee before the dissolution of the legislative assembly can be forwarded to a committee of the new legislative assembly. At the time of the dissolution of the seventh legislative assembly on December 4, 2024, the assembly passed resolutions to carry forward the incomplete work of three committees, namely the Committee of Privileges, Committee on Petitions and Questions and Reference Committee.

According to officials, 59 matters of the sixth assembly and 69 matters of the seventh assembly were kept pending by the Committee of Privileges.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief whip in the Delhi Assembly Abhay Verma moved a petition to withdraw the cases.

“Most of the pending matters were either not examined by the committees or kept pending without submitting any reports for years together... some of the matters involving the officers of the Delhi government had led to litigation in the Delhi high court. Now, therefore, this House decides that no further action be taken on the pending matters referred to the Committee of Privileges, Committee on Petitions and Questions and Reference Committee during the VI and VII Assembly and the same may be treated as disposed,” said Verma.

In response, Speaker Vijender Gupta said: “Ideally, if the complaints were genuine, the committees should have investigated these cases and reported to the House. However, the reasons for which they were kept pending by the then members of the committees are best known to them.”

A Delhi Assembly official said that as a result of the Speaker’s decision to dispose of the cases, eight court cases filed against officers of Delhi government, some of who are now retired, will be closed. Among the officials are retired Delhi chief secretary M M Kutty, former chief secretary Anshu Prakash (retired), senior IAS officer Manisha Saxena, Varsha Joshi, Amjad Tak, Amit Singla, Sanjiv Khirwar, Nidhi Srivastva, Surbir Singh and others. The cases include contempt of the House for skipping summons of committees, for alleged irregularities in a cooperative bank, and summons for shortage of medicines, among others.

According to Rule 223 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, the Committee of Privileges should submit its report within a month. Most of the complaints were against officials of the Delhi government filed by the ruling party members.

The Speaker said there appeared to be an attempt to target officers of the Delhi government. “Some of the matters before these committees are pending since 2016 and no sittings were held to examine them. Some of the officers sought the protection of courts and eight of these are now before the Delhi high court,” Speaker Gupta said.

Gupta said the committees should start with a clean slate. “I think that the committees of the eighth assembly... not be entangled with matters which appear to be motivated. I also think that keeping officers, some of whom are now retired, on tenterhooks does not behove a legislature or its committees,” Gupta said.