Chandigarh: The appointments of six MLAs as political and planning advisers to Chief Minister Amrinder Singh in the ranks of cabinet minister and a minister of state were challenged before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The petition filed by advocate Jagmohan Singh Bhatti said the appointments attract disqualification of the members from Assembly as they would be now holding the Office of Profit and seeks a direction to restrain the State from providing any facilities and perks to the appointees. The petition is yet to come up for hearing.
The plea filed in public interest by Bhatti stated that the impugned orders have been issued illegally, arbitrarily and in violation of the constitutional provisions. “It is submitted that the Chief Secretary of Punjab has no authority to issue such orders in the specific provisions of the Constitution,” Bhatti has submitted. It also said that the appointments attract disqualification of the members from Assembly as they would be now holding the Office of Profit and seeks a direction to restrain the State from providing any facilities and perks to the appointees.
“The limit of 15 per cent (of ministers in the Cabinet) exceeds with the induction of these six newly added MLAs with Cabinet rank with their camouflaged appointment as Advisers in the State Cabinet and it attracts disqualification (from the Assembly)”, said Bhatti in his petition.
Currently, the state has 17 ministers in the Cabinet, including Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Advocate Bhatti last year had also challenged the induction of nine more ministers in the state Cabinet submitting that the increase in number had resulted into Cabinet being in excess of 15 per cent of the Assembly. “In view of the 91st amendment of the Constitution, the number of Ministers in the State of Punjab could not exceed 17,” Bhatti said in the plea. Since then, MLA, Amritsar East, Navjot Singh Sidhu has resigned from the Cabinet resulting it having now only 17 members. The latest appointments brings the issue back.
Bhatti in latest petition has further commented that the large cavalcade of these ministers is a burden on the state government. The appointments are illegal and unconstitutional, he has said. Earlier in 2012, Bhatti had challenged the appointment of 18 MLAs as Chief Parliamentary Secretaries by the Akali government and the same was allowed in 2016 by setting aside the appointments with the ruling that their appointments are in fact a roundabout way of bypassing the Constitutional mandate and, therefore, have to be invalidated.
