HC quashes appointments of four Haryana CPSes

CHANDIGARH: In a jolt to the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday quashed the appointment of four MLAs as chief parliamentary secretaries.

The judgment comes nearly a year after the court quashed similar appointments by the SADBJP government in Punjab terming them as unconstitutional.

A division bench comprising justices SS Saron and Darshan Singh, however, gave the four legislators – Shyam Singh Rana, Bakhshish Singh Virk, Seema Trikha and Kamal Gupta - time to file an appeal against the order by keeping it in abeyance for three weeks.

The verdict came on a PIL filed by an advocate Jagmohan Singh Bhatti who had filed the litigation shortly after the four were appointed chief parliamentary secretaries in July 2015.

Bhatti had argued that the appointments were illegal and contrary to the 91st constitutional amendment, which limits the size of the council of ministers in the state to not more than 15% of MLAs in the assembly.

There are nine cabinet ministers, five ministers of state and four CPSes in the 90-member House. Significantly, chief parliamentary secretaries are often appointed on these posts by various state governments to accommodate MLAs since all cannot be made ministers . Bhatti had contended that the state was spending lakhs of rupees of public money on salaries, perks and facilities for these CPSEs who were de-facto ministers.

The same division bench in August 2016, had quashed two dozen appointments made by the Parkash Singh Badal-led government in Punjab.

APPOINTMENTS OF SHYAM SINGH RANA, BAKHSHISH SINGH VIRK, SEEMA TRIKHA AND KAMAL GUPTA HAVE BEEN SET ASIDE