Delhi High Court rejects BJP MLAs' plea for special sitting of Delhi Legislative Assembly to table CAG reports

The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed the plea filed by Seven Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) seeking a special sitting of Delhi Legislative Assembly for tabling 14 reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) before the State Assembly..Single-judge Justice Sachin Datta rejected the prayer for such a sitting holding that the power to convene the sitting of a Legislative Assembly is solely within the domain of the speaker of the said Assembly and courts cannot issue such directions.“It has been unmistakably laid down by the Supreme Court that the power to reconvene sitting/s of the Legislative Assembly after it has been adjourned sine die without prorogation, is the sole prerogative of the Speaker of the Assembly. It is not permissible for this Court to issue directions with regard thereto..Court is not inclined to accept the petition for summoning the a special session for laying the reports,” Justice Datta said.Nevertheless, the Court acknowledged that there was an inordinate delay on the part of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in placing the reports before the assembly as alleged in the petition.The petition alleged that the Delhi government had delayed forwarding the CAG reports by around 490 days. "Laying of CAG reports is a mandatory constitutional imperative and there was an inordinate delay on the part of Delhi government for forwarding the CAG reports to the Speaker," the Court said.Hence, it directed that once the Legislative Assembly is constituted and summoned pursuant to the upcoming elections, requisite steps shall be taken by the Delhi government to place the CAG Reports before the Assembly as expeditiously as possible..The petition before the Court has been filed by seven BJP MLAs, namely, Vijender Gupta, Mohan Singh Bisht, Om Prakash Sharma, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Abhay Verma, Anil Bajpai, and Jitender Mahajan.The BJP MLAs called for the CAG reports to be forwarded to the Assembly Speaker and for a special assembly sitting to be held to discuss and deliberate on these reports.The petition was filed through advocates Neeraj and Satya Ranjan Swain.The Chief Minister of Delhi (CM), the Lieutenant General of Delhi (LG), the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and the CAG were made parties. .Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethamalani, representing the BJP MLAs, had argued that the petitioners were seeking the fulfilment of a constitutional mandate. He pointed out that the CAG’s duties are given under Articles 149 and Article 151 of the Constitution and added, "This is the basic feature of parliamentary democracy.”The LG's office by an affidavit dated January 3, submitted that the AAP government was "not ceasing in their delay tactics."The Secretary of the Legislative Assembly also filed a short reply, in which he submitted that the tabling of CAG reports is meant for detailed scrutiny and examination by the Assembly on such reports, and not to make the same publicly available..Last month, the High Court had disposed of a plea raising similar concerns about the delays in tabling CAG reports before the Delhi Legislative Assembly.At the time, the Delhi LG's office had submitted that the LG had approved the CAG reports and that all that was left to be done was for the government to table them before the Assembly. The LG's office had also submitted that the CAG reports had been lying with the Chief Minister's office for an inordinate amount of time before it had finally been sent to the LG for approval in December.The Delhi government, in turn, had assured that the CAG reports would be forwarded to the Speaker so that it is tabled before the Assembly within two or three days.The Court had recorded these assurances in an order dated December 16, 2024, and closed the plea.However, it had added that the petitioners may resort to appropriate legal proceedings if further delays arise..Since the CAG reports were yet to be tabled, the BJP MLAs approached the High Court again for relief by way of the present plea which came to be dismissed today..Senior Advocates Mahesh Jethmalani, Jayant Mehta, Pavan Narang, and Anil Soni, with Advocates Neeraj, Satya Ranjan Swain, Ravi Sharma, Ajay Awasthi, Kautilya Birat, Sanjay Pal, Rudra Paliwal, Ankush Kapoor, Soumyadip Chakraborty, Sachin Saraswat, Vaibhav Thaledi, Himanshu Sethi, Vikramaditya Sanghi and Sushil Kr. Pandey appeared for the BJP MLAs.Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra along with Additional Standing Counsel Rishikesh Kumar, with Advocates Divyam Nandrajog, Sheenu Priya, Vikash Saini, Atik Gill and Sudhir appeared for GNCTD and Delhi CM.Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog, along with Advocates Ankita Singh, Udit Malik, Palak Sharma, Velmurugan and Rima Rao appeared for the Delhi Assembly Speaker.Advocates Bani Dikshit, Uddhav Khanna, Anirudh Sharma, Dhruva Vig and Vridhi Kashyap appeared for Delhi LG.Advocates Shreeyash U. Lalit, Himanshu Vats, Runjhun Garg, Lavam Tyagi, and Angad Pahale appeared for CAG..A public interest litigation petition raising the same issue is currently pending before a Division Bench of the High Court.[Read Judgment]