Delhi Assembly disposes of over 300 pending inquiries by House committees against officers

The Committee on Privileges, Committee on Petitions, and Committee on Questions and References look at cases related to government departments and issue notices to officials to appear before them.

According to Gupta, in a meeting on December 4, 2024, the 7th Legislative Assembly passed three resolutions to the effect that incomplete work of the Committees should be examined by the respective Committees of the 8th Legislative Assembly under Rule 183. Under this rule, 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 6th and 7th Legislative Assemblies, the Assembly had passed resolutions to carry forward incomplete work of these three committees,” he said.

However, after reviewing pending inquiries before the committees, Gupta concluded that “these should not have been forwarded”. He further noted that the decision to dispose of the cases followed a resolution moved by Chief Whip, Laxmi Nagar MLA Abhay Verma, in the ongoing Budget session.

The Speaker emphasised that “if the complaints were genuine, the committees should have investigated these cases and reported to the House”. However, he pointed out that “the reasons for which they were kept pending by the then members of the committees are best known to them”.

The Committee on Privileges had 59 inquiries pending from the 6th Legislative Assembly and 69 inquiries from the 7th.

Former minister and AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj, was one of the members of the Privileges Committee, and ex-MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi was the chairman.

Gupta said, “As per Rule 223, the Committee on Privileges is generally required to submit its report in a month. Most complaints were filed by members of the then ruling party against officers of the Delhi government.”

According to the House, the Petitions Committee has 107 inquiries pending from the 6th Legislative Assembly and 72 from the 7th Assembly. The Committee on Questions and References also has four pending inquiries from the 7th Legislative Assembly.

Gupta highlighted that some of these inquiries have been pending since 2016, with no

meetings held for investigation. Furthermore, some officers sought protection from the courts, and eight of these cases are now before the Delhi High Court. He requested the House to decide whether these cases should be carried forward or dropped, and the resolution was passed by the House.

The Chief Whip said, “A significant number of pending cases have either not been examined by the committees or have remained pending for several years without any report being submitted. Certain cases involving officials of the Delhi government have also led to the filing of cases in the High Court of Delhi.”

“This House resolves that no further action be taken on the pending cases referred to the Committee on Privileges, the Committee on Petitions, and the Committee on Questions and References during the Sixth and Seventh Legislative Assemblies and that they be considered as disposed of,” Verma added.

The next hearing date for all 8 cases is scheduled for April 30 in the Delhi HC.

An official alleged, “Several cases filed by the previous government were political and officials were called to the meeting and shouted at.”

Some cases before the committees

-In 2018, former Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash was allegedly assaulted at ex-CM Arvind Kejriwal’s Civil Lines residence. Days after, the Assembly House panel recommended privilege proceedings against him for contempt of the House after he did not attend committee summons, including one in relation to a scam in the Delhi Nagrik Sehkari Bank. Prakash and several bureaucrats moved the HC against the panel.

– In 2023, the Committee on Petitions presented its investigation report, ‘Sabotaging the functioning Of OPD counters in Delhi government hospitals at the behest of the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor of Delhi’ before the House. Alleging that delay by the Finance Dept in inviting tenders caused suffering to patients, it requested the President and Home Minister to suspend the Chief Secretary and the Finance Secretary.

– Other bureaucrats against whom committee proceedings were underway included IAS officers Dr M M Kutty, Varsha Joshi, Amjad Tak, Sanjeev Khirwar, Amit Singla, Jaidev Sarangi, Rupesh Thakur and Nidhi Srivastava.