Law secy will get powers to decide appeals

NEW DELHI: Lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal will soon delegate powers to the principal secretary (law) to decide if the Delhi government needs to file appeals in criminal cases.

Baijal’s order will limit the role of Delhi’s law minister who until now used to sign and give recommendations on all criminal cases before forwarding them to the L-G for a final decision.

Confirming the move, law minister Kailash Gahlot said the powers will be delegated to the law secretary so that an appeal can be filed on time. “Such matters have always been the L-G’S discretion and all appeals even after the minister’s opinion had to go to him. The L-G is free to do whatever he wants,” he said.

Gahlot, however, said decisions on serious criminal cases such as those under POCSO Act or prevention of the corruption (POC) Act will continue to be routed through him, after which it will be sent to the L-G.

This comes weeks after the L-G in a similar order had delegated powers to the principal secretary (home) for granting parole to convicts lodged in jails in the city. With this, 95% of parole applications are now directly under the officer’s discretion and if a party has an objection with a parole decision, s/he will have to go to the court.

Government officials said the decisions to delegate powers to the principal secretaries of the departments concerned are aimed at eliminating delays. “While the L-G will relieve himself from having to approve such cases, the law minister too will not receive these files,” said an official privy to the development.

According to the rules, decisions on filing an appeal in criminal cases need to be taken by the Delhi government within 60 days. But in most cases, the government has been late due to procedural delays as the decision has to go through four levels.

“The file starts from the additional secretary law, then it goes to secretary law, law minister and then the L-G. Now, calls on filing an appeal will be taken in a two-level process only,” the official said. The HC has pulled up the L-G and the Delhi government, saying that at all levels, majority of appeals and petitions filed by the government are “well beyond the period of limitation”. “A 180 plus-day delay in the filing of a criminal appeal/leave petition by Delhi government in this court, against an order of acquittal, is par for the course...it is a waste of public revenue and detrimental to public interest,” it said.