New Delhi: AAP government is acting in a “preconceived manner” and creating an “unnecessary impasse” in order to prevent Delhi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) from functioning in accordance with law, the Centre told Delhi High Court on Wednesday.
The bench took the affidavit on record and posted the matter for further hearing on September 9 along with other similar cases, reports. In the detailed affidavit, the Centre sought rejection of the AAP government application terming it as “misonceived” and “frivolous”. It also denied the allegations levelled in the application.
“It is stated that petitioner is acting in a preconceived manner in order to prevent the ACB Delhi to function in accordance with law,” the Centre’s reply said. It said the ACB was bound to act in accordance with the law and cannot expand its juridiction suo motu and start registering complaints with respect to employees who are not officials of Delhi government, as it would violate the scheme of the Constitution and the Centre’s notification.
AAP government had earlier said that the ACB came directly under its Vigilance Department as per presidential rules and the vigilance secretary headed the department. It had said that ACB chief M K Meena was not reporting to the vigilance department or its secretary.
On July 29, the court had issued notice to the Centre on a plea of Delhi government seeking directions to ACB “to receive the complaint from the SDM, register an FIR and carry out investigation in accordance with law.”
The plea had alleged that Meena had “prevented the receipt of the complaint sought to be submitted by SDM and the registration of an FIR thereupon, by orchestrating the removal of the FIR book and the ‘Roznamcha’ from the precincts of the ACB which is a police station under…CrPC and is wholly illegal Act”.
The face-off between the LG and Kejriwal’s government has resulted in the ACB now having two chiefs. It all began on June 8, when Joint Commissioner Meena took charge of ACB after he was appointed by LG, superseding Additional Commissioner S S Yadav. Yadav had been hand-picked by Delhi government for the post.
Bureau Report
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