NEW DELHI: A month after removing AAP’s Jasmine Shah and the party’s Rajya Sabha MP ND Gupta’s son Naveen Gupta and two other private persons from the board of power discoms in Delhi, L-G VK Saxena has ordered filling the vacant positions with senior government officers, sources said.
The order issued by the power department said the finance and power secretaries and MD of Delhi Transco would replace the four private persons and represent the city government on the board of the discoms. The L-G’s decision flows from powers under rule 51 of the ToBR, 1993 (read with proviso to Article 239AA(4) of the Constitution).
Last month, the L-G ordered the removal of Shah, Gupta, Umesh Tyagi and JS Deswal from the board of power discoms BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL), BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) and Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited citing violation of constitutional provisions and causing a loss of over Rs 8,600 core to the state government.
Saxena had referred the matter to the President of India and asked for the removal of “political appointees” on the discom boards. Saxena argued the appointment of Shah and three others “illegal” since the due process of law was not followed. Source said the AAP government appointed Shah, Gupta, Umesh Tyagi and JS Deswal to the board of BRPL and BYPL in 2019 despite objections from previous L-Gs.
An official document says the nominations of Shah and three others were objected to first by former L-G Najeeb Jung in 2016. However, the AAP government re-proposed their nominations in 2017 which was also disapproved by Jung’s successor Anil Baijal in 2017. The AAP has hit back to the Saxena’s move calling it “illegal and unconstitutional.”