Delhi HC to pass order over tabling of CAG reports in Assembly on Jan 24

The Delhi High Court will on January 24 pass order on a plea by Delhi opposition MLAs seeking a sitting of the Delhi assembly for tabling CAG reports.

Justice Sachin Datta would pronounce the judgement.

Opposition leader Vijender Gupta and BJP MLAs -- Mohan Singh Bisht, Om Prakash Sharma, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Abhay Verma, Anil Kumar Bajpai and Jitendra Mahajan -- filed the petition last year and sought a direction to the speaker to call a sitting of the assembly for the purpose of tabling the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports.

The petitioners filed the plea through advocates Neeraj and Satya Ranjan Swain.

The senior lawyers for the speaker and the Delhi government opposed the passing of such a direction by the court and said there was no urgency to table the reports at this stage when the assembly elections were due to be held soon.

In a reply, the assembly secretariat said no useful purpose would be served in laying CAG reports before the assembly when its tenure was ending in February and no judicial order could be passed to the speaker in matters of internal functioning of the legislative assembly.

During a hearing held on January 13, the court said the CAG reports should have been promptly placed before the assembly for discussion and the state government "dragging its feet" on the issue raised "doubts on its bonafides".

The court reserved the order on January 16 after hearing all the parties.