NEW DELHI: Delhi Cabinet Minister Atishi on Sunday urged Lt Governor V K Saxena to take action against officers whose negligence led to the deaths of two men in separate incidents in Harsh Vihar and LNJP Hospital. She also said that the LG is empowered to do so under the Centre’s ordinance on control of services.
“I would like to tell you until the court’s decision on this black ordinance does not come’. you should take immediate action against these careless officers. It is because of their negligence that two lives came to an end. “You should break your silence and take action immediately, otherwise the people of Delhi will keep facing trouble like this,” she said in a letter to the L-G.
She accused the LG of maintaining silence on the issue and argued that an elected government must have the power to transfer and suspend officers. Ajit Sharma, 51, was returning home after dropping a passenger in east Delhi’s Bhajanpura on Friday when his auto-rickshaw got stuck in a ditch filled with rainwater near Wazirabad. When he got out to push the vehicle, he fell into the ditch and drowned. A labourer was electrocuted at an under-construction building here on Sunday, officials said.
“Despite these incidents, you are silent. It has been two days since an autorickshaw driver lost his life due to the negligence of officers, but you have neither taken action nor have had the courage to say anything on this matter,” she said.
The Delhi government on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance on control of services, calling it an “unconstitutional exercise of executive fiat” that attempts to “override” the top court and the basic structure of the Constitution.
The Delhi government has also sought an interim stay on it till the final verdict arrives. The Centre had on May 19 promulgated the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023, to create an authority for the transfer and posting of Group-A officers in Delhi.