Delhi Speaker has no competence to make appointments to house secretariat: HC

New Delhi, Dec 27 (IANS) The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea challenging the termination of a person from the post of Secretary of the Delhi Assembly, holding that the Speaker or any authority under him has no competence to make appointments to the house Secretariat.

A bench of Justice Chandra Dhari Singh said that Article 187 of the Constitution, which provides that the house or each house of the legislature of a state shall have a separate secretarial staff, thus, has no applicability to the Legislative Assembly of NCT of Delhi.

"The posts can be created in the Legislative Assembly of NCT of Delhi with the approval of Lt. Governor, Delhi, who is the competent authority by virtue of delegation of powers in this regard under Article 309 of the Constitution.

"The services under the NCT of Delhi are necessarily the services of the Union and they are expressly covered only by Entry 70 of List I (of the Constitution).

"The Legislative Assembly of NCT of Delhi has no legislative competence to legislate in respect of any subjects covered under Entries 1, 2 and 18 of State List and Entry 70 of the Union List," the court order said.

"As already discussed, the DLA has no separate secretarial cadre and as such, either the Speaker or any authority of the DLA has no competence either to create such a post or to make appointments to such post," it held.

The remarks were made while rejecting a petition filed by Siddharth Rao, who was fired from his job as the Legislature Secretary, challenging two orders declaring his appointment to be illegitimate and removing him from his position.

The court said: "The facts, thus, reveal that the deputation of the petitioner was made on the non-existent post of OSD (officer on special duty), after completion of probation period as OSD, he was immediately absorbed on the post of Joint Secretary and immediately within a year, he was given the charge of Secretary with all upgradation in pay scales.

"Nowhere the approval was taken from competent authority for such deputation as OSD, absorption to Joint Secretary and promotion to Secretary, the appointment was vitiated by fraud and is void ab initio."