Delhi Assembly sets up committee on officers' misconduct with MLAs

The Delhi Assembly on Monday passed a resolution to form a committee to look into the cases of misconduct of government officers with its members.

The misconduct, as explained by ruling Aam Aadmi Party member Saurabh Bharadwaj, includes not meeting MLAs, not taking their calls or not following protocol with them.

The resolution for the constitution of 'House Committee on Violation of Protocol Norms and contemptuous Behavior by Government Officers with MLAs' was moved by AAPs' Vishesh Ravi.

The committee will consist of nine members including one chairperson.

While Bharadwaj will be the chairperson, the eight other members areSanjiv Jha, Akhilesh Pati Tripathi, Fateh Singh, Bhawna Gaur, Somdutt Sharma, Vishesh Ravi, Pankaj Pushkar, and Surrender Singh.

Bharadwaj stressed that the issues and differences between the government and the officers should not come in between the relation of officers and MLAs.

He said the committee should have guidelines similar to the ones issued by Union Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Ministry on the subject of official dealings between the administration and Members of Parliament and State legislatures.

BJP member Manjinder Singh Sirsa supported this point but demanded that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should apologise to Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash "like he is apologising to everybody who has nothing to do with Delhi government".

During the discussion, Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, of the BJP, said the powers of the committee could be "misused".

The procedure which will be followed by the committee for examine complaints referred to it will be the same as the procedure for inquiry and determination by the committee of privileges as it relates to any question of breach of privelege of the house or a member, the resolution said.

The committee will be free to enlarge the scope of issues under examination and the rules governing powers and functioning of the committee on privileges could also apply to this committee.

Bharadwaj said that the formation of the committee was the need of the hour as the officers "don't want any accountability and the corrupt officers have found a way to prevent themselves".

"If they are not reachable, what kind of democracy is it?" he questioned.

With the formation of the committee, Bharadwaj said, if an officer misbehaves, the MLA should not retaliate but file complaint with this committee.

--IANS

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