Vinai Kumar Saxena
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Lieutenant Governor office on Sunday accused the AAP led Delhi Government for allegedly running a parallel civil service in the national capital by employing 437 private individuals as fellows and consultants, most of them were AAP workers, on hefty salaries paid by the public exchequer.
“Not only did the Delhi government brazenly flouted the Constitutional provision of Reservation for SC/ST/OBC in employing these private individuals, it also rigged the entire selection process, chose favored individuals with dubious qualifications and used these so called ‘Fellows’ and ‘Consultants’ as political/party workers for political propaganda,” the LG office alleged.
It said that the modus operandi of the AAP government was to bulldoze every constitutional norm and every rule in the rulebook. These private individuals, political workers were filled in almost every department, agency, Board and PSU under the Delhi Government, in many cases in place of senior government officers, essentially to evade any accountability and tweak the rules to their political advantage.
“Despite the set guidelines of the Union Government and the GNCTD, that reservations are to be made for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in all temporary appointments which are to last for forty five days or more, the Arvind Kejriwal government, blatantly went ahead with the appointments, without any reserved category seats.
“Multiple of the Delhi Government and even its own Ministers, in several written correspondences, had agreed to the Constitutional provision of Reservation, but in its agenda to appoint their own cadre, the AAP government threw these written affirmations in the dustbin of illegality,” the LG office said.
It said that the Speaker of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, General Purpose Committee of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, the Minister (Law/AR), GNCTD Kailash Gehlot, the Parliamentary Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the Department of Personnel & Training, Govt. of India, and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India, had agreed (directly/indirectly) that reservation would be applicable in case of engagement of such fellows/associate fellows, being a matter of engagement for more than 45 days. But the AAP government elbowed every authority in order to achieve its political goals.
“In nutshell, a Brahmin Minister in the AAP Government, Saurabh Bhardwaj, gave government jobs to several of his fellow Brahmin AAP workers, through backdoor, and snatched away the rights of SCs, STs and OBCs,” LG office alleged.
The LG office said that there were manipulations in the selection process to even appoint the unqualified wife of an AAP MLA.
“Delhi Assembly’s Speaker in 2020 nominated Ratnesh Gupta, Director, Bureau of Legislative Assembly, as one of the three names for selecting the consultants. Who is Ratnesh Gupta? Gupta is an active member of the AAP Party. He filed the nomination for Patparganj Seat from Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi Legislative Assembly Elections 2015 and later withdrew his nomination in favour of Manish Sisodia,” LG office said.
The LG office alleged that Anchal Bawa, wife of sitting MLA of Aam Aadmi Party Durgesh Pathak, who is now AAP’s in-charge for MCD, claimed false experience of NGO, for which she could not produce any experience certificate, was allowed to be engaged as associate fellow, in gross violation of the set of rules.
The LG office said that Anchal Bawa was earning Rs.60,000 per month from the State Exchequer.
“Ms Deepshika Singh was perhaps ‘Moonlighting’ at her job, because she was working full time and also completing college at the same time, which is a highly suspicious claim. She claimed in her resume that had full time experience of between 2013 and 2018 from Manu Educational Cultural & Social Welfare Society, Delhi.
“In the experience certificate provided by her, it is mentioned that she had full-time employment of forty hours a week. It is also observed that she completed her post-graduation degree vM.A. in Development and Labour Studies (which is a regular course) from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2018.
“It is thus not possible for anyone to attend the University’s regular course to maintain minimum attendance and also work on full time basis employment of 40 hours a week,” the LG office said.
The LG office further stated that AAP government wants the ‘Services Ordinance’ quashed because it exposes its dubious intentions of running a parallel administration in Delhi, bulldozing every Constitutional provision and looting public money by employing AAP workers in government jobs.