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Journalism of Courage
The Delhi High Court will on Tuesday hear a petition by AAP national convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the party’s former minister Manish Sisodia, challenging the summons and notices issued to them by the BJP-led Delhi Assembly’s Committee of Committee of Privileges.
The AAP leaders are also seeking a court direction calling for records and restraining the Committee of Privileges from proceeding further in relation to the notices and summons.
Listed before Justice Sachin Datta, the petition was filed on November 8 after the committee issued summonses to the two on November 4, calling on them to appear before it for verifying the “authenticity of faansi ghar”.
Earlier, they were issued notice, seeking an explanation, on September 9 — to which they had responded.
Kejriwal, then CM of Delhi, had in 2022 inaugurated a structure on the Assembly premises and claimed it to be a “British-era execution chamber”. In August this year, BJP MLA and speaker Vijender Gupta told the House that the structure was actually a “tiffin room” as per records. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta had also accused the AAP government of misleading people.
Kejriwal and Sisodia, in their petition, have contended that such procedure is without jurisdiction and that the committee has not complied with procedural safeguards.
Notably, the committee is scheduled to meet at 3 pm on Thursday “to deliberate the matter regarding the faansi ghar”.
In their petition, the two AAP leaders have highlighted that the proceedings, having been initiated more than three years after the incident “and only after a regime change strongly indicate that the privilege mechanism is being misused for political vendetta rather than for its constitutional purpose of protecting the functioning of the Legislature”.
“There is no act of defiance or obstruction to legislative business. On the contrary, the event in the previous Vidhan Sabha was part of the Speaker’s administrative prerogative. It is respectfully submitted that there is no allegation of contempt, obstruction, or breach of privilege,” the petition stated.
“The proceedings therefore lack the jurisdictional facts necessary to assume authority … the alleged act bears no functional nexus to legislative duties,” they submitted in their plea.
According to historians, it is “unlikely” that the two rooms in the Assembly building that were renovated in 2022 were a ‘faansi ghar’.
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