Six months and no LoP in Haryana from Congress, Saini govt considers ‘legal options’

Incidentally, in a similar situation in Jharkhand, when the BJP had failed to choose an LoP four months into a JMM-led alliance government, the latter had gone to the Supreme Court. In January, the Supreme Court intervened, and in March, the BJP named Babulal Marandi as the LoP.

In Haryana, along with the Chief Minister and a minister, an LoP is part of selection committees for appointments to posts such as the Chief Information Commissioner and 10 Information Commissioners. Currently the State Information Commission is functioning with barely three members – Jagbir Singh, Pradeep Kumar Shekhawat and Kulbir Chhikara – with pending appeals and complaints under the Right to Information Act now numbering over 7,200.

Sources said former chief secretary T V S N Prasad is among the frontrunners for the post of Chief Information Commissioner, if and when the meeting of the selection committee takes place.

Last week, speaking to mediapersons, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini said: “We are going to take legal opinion from the Advocate General to see how we can go ahead with the appointments that are stuck due to the absence of an LoP.”

Haryana BJP chief Mohan Lal Badoli told The Indian Express: “It is for the Congress to decide whom they want to appoint as their CLP leader. But, the government has to go ahead with its appointments. Whatever can be done legally, the government shall do.”

In the case of Jharkhand, the Supreme Court had directed the BJP on January 5 to nominate an LoP within two weeks, while hearing a petition regarding the long-pending appointments of Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners in the state. The state government had told the Court that the main reason for the delay was the absence of an LoP. The BJP had finally named Marandi as its legislature party leader in March.

While Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the senior-most leader of the Congress in Haryana, declined to comment on the issue, Congress Rohtak MLA B B Batra said the government was wrongly claiming that its hands were tied on the matter of appointments. Claiming that the Congress decision on LoP would come “soon” and that only a limited number of appointments were decided by selection panels of which the LoP was a part, Batra said: “But, there is no bar on the government to hold a selection committee meeting. They can do so without the LoP, too… pick any senior leader from the opposition party instead.”

At the Centre, for example, after the Congress could not lay claim to Leader of the Opposition post due to the low number of seats it won in the 2014 general elections, the Modi government had included Mallikarjun Kharge – by virtue of being the leader in the Lok Sabha of the Congress, the single-largest party – in several selection panels.