‘Parliamentary secretaries working without pay, office’

The fear of losing membership of the Delhi Assembly has led all the 21 parliamentary secretaries appointed by the AAP government to reportedly tell the Election Commission that they were not holding any office of profit in the national capital. The parliamentary secretaries also told the poll panel that they were neither using any office nor any vehicle of the city government.

The issue related to the disqualification of the 21 legislators arose after advocate Prashant Patel petitioned President Pranab Mukherjee, alleging that these AAP MLAs should be disqualified for holding an “office of profit” in the AAP government. Mr Mukherjee had sought the EC opinion on the issue. The EC, in turn, had sought replies of all the 21 parliamentary secretaries. Once the poll panel examines their replies, it will send its opinion to the President, who will then take a final call on the contentious matter.

On the appointment of 21 parliamentary secretaries, lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung had earlier told a TV news channel that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had taken a risk and it was for all to see. “By definition, when we look at the statue of Delhi, then the office of a parliamentary secretary is defined as an office of profit. Schedule 7 says that Delhi can have only one parliamentary secretary, attached to the office of the chief minister. If the Centre does not approve the bill sent by the Delhi government to regularise the posts, the MLAs may be disqualified.”

However, in their respective written replies, backed by a letter from the government’s general administration department, all the 21 parliamentary secretaries categorically denied using any government office or vehicle to discharge their duties. It was the GAD’s then principal secretary Anindo Majumdar, who had through his order dated March 13, 2015 said that the parliamentary secretaries would not be eligible for any remuneration or any perk of any kind from the government. The order added, “However, they may use the government transport for official purposes only and office space in minister’s office will be provided to them to facilitate their work.”

The AAP legislators designated as parliamentary secretaries are Praveen Kumar with education minister, Sharad Kumar with revenue minister, Adarsh Shastri with information and technology minister, Madan Lal with vigilance minister, Charan Goel with finance minister, Sanjeev Jha with transport minister, Sarita Singh with employment minister, Naresh Yadav with labour minister, Jarnail Singh of Tilak Nagar with development minister, Rajesh Gupta, Rajesh Rishi and Anil Kumar Bajpai with health minister, Som Dutt with industries minister, Avtar Singh Kalka with the minister of gurdwara elections, Vijender Garg Vijay with the PWD minister, Jarnail Singh of Rajouri Garden with power minister, Kailash Gahlot with law minister, Alka Lamba with tourism minister, Manoj Kumar with food and supplies minister, Nitin Tyagi with women, child and social welfare minister and Sukhvir Singh with the minister of languages and welfare of SC/ST/OBC.

In his petition to the EC, Mr Patel had attached a copy of a document giving details about the rooms reportedly allocated to each of the parliamentary secretaries in the Delhi Secretariat. He claimed that some parliamentary secretaries had “even made known to their constituents the rooms allotted to them (indicating them as their official address) by putting up hoardings etc. in their constituencies.”