The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday quashed the appointment of 18 chief parliamentary secretaries appointed by the Badal government in 2012.
The judgment pronounced by a division bench of Justice S.S. Saron and Justice Ramendra Jain is a major embarrassment for the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP ruling alliance and came on two petitions filed four years ago. The petitions filed by advocates Jagmohan Singh Bhatti and H.C. Arora in 2012 had questioned the legal sanctity of secretaries on the ground that there is no provision for their appointments in the Constitution.
The total number of secretaries in Punjab is 24, which is more than its 18 Cabinet ministers, including chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. Six secretaries were appointed in April this year and the petition challenging their appointment is still pending in the high court. This judgment will also have bearing on the pending petition.
Similar appointments of secretaries have been quas-hed by the HP high court, Kolkata high court and Bombay high court, among others. Successive governments in Punjab and Haryana have taken the secretaries route to circumvent the constitutional cap on the number of ministers, which should not exceed 15 per cent of the total strength of the Vidhan Sabha.
