NEW DELHI:The mercury never stops rising in the heat of the Arvind Kejriwal-Najeeb Jung War. The Lieutenant Governor’s office is likely to scrap the AAP administration’s appointment of 22 lawyers as government counsel since no approval from the competent authorities—read Jung—was taken.
No love has been lost between the CM and the L-G since Kejriwal came to power on Valentine’s Day, 2015. The newly appointed advocates have argued many cases on the state government’s behalf for more power over Delhi Police. The L-G’s office received a complaint on October 7 from law graduate Vibhor Anand, stating that 22 advocates have been appointed government counsels by the CM without adhering to procedure. The complainant contended that for such appointments to be made, the state government should have got the green signal from the L-G as stipulated by the Delhi High Court in a judgment. “The Delhi Government created a new post namely Senior Standing Counsel (Civil) without necessary amendment in the law and appointed Rahul Mehra as the Senior Standing Counsel without taking the approval of the L-G as mandated by the Delhi High Court,” the complainant said, while requesting the L-G to declare the appointments illegal and quash the Gazette notification. Sources indicate that Jung is likely to cancel the appointments.
Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung is irked over the brawl-prone AAP government of Arvind Kejriwal appointing government counsel without clearance from his office as per rules.
The state government has appointed Chirag M Shroff, Atul Kumar and Jagjit Singh Chhabra as Advocates on Record and 10 more lawyers on the Arguing Panel in the Supreme Court without the LG’s clearance. The Arguing Panel comprises Sidhartha Dave, Manav Gupta, Kuldip Singh, Amarjit Singh Bedi, Gurmehar Singh Sistani, Yashvardhan, Sunil Sharma, Karuna Nundy, Aishwarya Rao, Navin R Nath, Niraj Gupta and Charu Walikhanna.
The AAP government also appointed advocate Pabitra Roychaudhari as the Additional Standing Counsel
(civil) without prior assent of Jung.
Moreover, the state government also appointed Prabhasahay Kaur, Meenakshi Midha, Rishikesh Kumar, Anupam Srivastav and Tarunvir Singh Kehar as Additional Standing Counsels (civil) in a similar fashion.
These appointments were made through Gazette Notifications dated September 2, 2015; January 6, 2016; June 24, 2016; June 30, 2016 and July 7, 2016. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia approved them. Sources said that the lieutenant governor will declare them null and void ab initio under various categories, in the coming week.
Kejriwal has upped ante his battle against the LG by demanding dissolution of the Shunglu Committee set up by Jung to examine 400 files pertaining to decisions the AAP dispensation has taken after coming to power.