No decision without ministers’ approval: Delhi govt to babus

No decision will be taken and no order will be passed by any secretary/principal secretary/chief secretary without the approval of (the) ministerincharge... GOVT ORDER

The Delhi government on Monday issued an order to its bureaucracy, including the chief secretary, directing them not to take any decision without the approval of the minister concerned or the chief minister.

The standing order issued by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and PWD minister Satyendar Jain said that the views of a department on any issue cannot be communicated without the nod of the minister-incharge.

“No decision will be taken and no order will be passed by any secretary/principal secretary/ chief secretary without the approval of (the) minister-incharge. Likewise, the views of the department on any issue shall not be communicated without the approval of (the) minister-in-charge,” it stated.

It said that “views from another department will be sought only after seeking approval of the minister-incharge.”

The Delhi government, however, alleged that the order was “leaked” to the media. Sisodia took to Twitter and alleged that the office of the Lieutenant Governor was behind it.

The move may lead to a tussle between the Kejriwal government and the office of the L-G who heads the bureaucracy in the national capital.

In their order, the ministers also said that over the last few months, “there have been several instances when matters of urgent and great public importance were dealt behind the back of elected government”.

“The files were dealt (with) secretly by some bureaucrats keeping their minister and the CM in dark ... The latest is the scholarship mess in the government of NCT of Delhi, which adversely affected the academics of more than five lakh students. The files were dealt (with) secretly by some officers, who kept the minister in dark,” it stated.

Calling it the “scholarship mess”, the order further cited the example of students scholarships which it failed to disburse to SC/ST students within the stipulated time frame.

The AAP government and the bureaucracy have been at loggerheads on a range of issues in the past too.

DANICS officers had proceeded on mass leave to protest against the suspension of two officers in December 2015.