After row, justice Sikri says won’t join C’wealth body
NEWDELHI: Justice AK Sikri withdrew his consent for a place on the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal (CSAT) on Sunday, hours after a media report over his nomination to the London-based body sparked a political row.
Justice Sikri voted with the government in a three-member committee to remove Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief Alok Verma last week.
Second in seniority after Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, justice Sikri was scheduled to join CSAT after his retirement on March 6, news website Theprint reported. The decision to nominate him as president/ member in the international body, which is the final arbiter of disputes between 53 membercountries, was taken by the Union government last month, it said.
Reacting to the report, which came days after Verma was removed in a 2-1 vote by the selection committee, Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “When the scales of justice are tampered with, anarchy reigns. This PM will stop at nothing, stoop to anything & destroy everything, to cover up the Rafale Scam. He’s driven by fear. It’s this fear that is making him corrupt & destroy key institutions.”
A person familiar with the developments said that justice Sikri has conveyed the withdrawal of his consent for the job to the government on Sunday evening. “Justice Sikri’s consent for the CSAT position by the government was taken in the first week of December, when even the judgment in the Alok Verma case was not pronounced. Moreover, justice Sikri did not know until today about the nomination. And the CSAT position is honorary and is not based out of London entirely, as the name suggests,” the person said on condition of anonymity.
The selection committee, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also had leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Justice Sikri, who was nominated by CJI Gogoi after he recused himself following the apex court’s judgment reinstating Verma as the chief of the investigating agency.
NEW DELHI: The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has set a 15-day deadline to find a solution to the issue of water accumulating at Mundka underpass, making it inaccessible for commuters. Last week, standing committee chairperson Veena Virmani, along with commissioner Varsha Joshi visited the site and expressed dissatisfaction over the water seepage and poor condition of the road at Mundka underpass.
“The underpass was made operational in 2013 but no arrangements were made to mitigate the water accumulation problem. Since it is a low-lying area, drain or rain water easily collects here. Some residents have even complained about seepage of underground water into the site. As a result, people have to wade through flooded roads,” area councillor Jayendra Dabas said.
Dabas had raised the matter in house meetings in past and after that the mayor gave instruction to construct a store room and install a pump to suck flooded water from underpass.
“But even after that, nothing happened. We didn’t want the situation to persist, so we raised the matter with officials and new commissioner again. We hope to see some improvement in condition of area,” said Dabas.
To ease traffic on the west Delhi road, the MCD had, in 2013, constructed an underpass between Mundka and Rani Khera. But since then, people have been facing problems commuting there. “The Delhi government plans to construct three cluster depots at Mundka with capacity to park 440 buses,” said Dabas.