Delhi Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Tuesday wrote a letter to Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena, alleging that a file related to appointment of presiding officer for mayoral polls of the MCD was sent to the LG office directly by the chief secretary bypassing him.  Bharadwaj requested the LG for returning the file to the chief secretary with an instruction that it should be sent to the LG office through the Urban Development minister.

No immediate reaction was available from the LG office and Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar on the minister’s claims.  Bharadwaj said that the matter was a transferred subject and as per the Constitution of India, it came under the control of elected government of Delhi.

 Therefore, like previous years, this file should have been routed through the Minister of Urban Development, he said in the letter.  He wrote,  “Please refer to the ‘Annexure A’ which shows the movement of the file related to appointment of Presiding Officer for conducting elections of Mayor for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. As your goodself is well aware that this is a transferred subject and as per the Constitution of India, this subject is under the control of the Elected Government of Delhi.”

He states that unlike the previous years in which the file was routed through the Minister of Urban Development, the CS tried bypassing the Delhi government. Bharadwaj said, “However, as it is clearly evident from the file movement, the Chief Secretray Naresh Kumar has deliberately bypassed the undersigned. He is very well aware that CM is in Judicial Custody, however he knowingly sent the file to the office of CM and as expected he got that file returned to him. And then he sent the file directly to your goodself.”

Describing the matter as a conspiracy, he highlighted the judgement of the Supreme Court and said, “This repeated conduct of CS is also against the directions of Hon’ble Supreme Court. While granting extension to him, the three Judges Bench of Supreme Court of India led by Justice DY Chandrachud had directed that ‘the post of a Chief Secretary is uniquely placed. The Chief Secretary performs functions which fall both within and outside the executive competence of the GNCTD. The Chief Secretary, though appointed by the Central Government, must comply with the directions of the elected government over matters on which their executive competence extends’.”

He alleged that Kumar has deliberately chosen to bypass the elected Government in the matters of transferred subjects previously too. “In the matter of foreign tour of MCD Mayor, the CS had repeated the same behaviour of deliberately bypassing the elected Government, which is evident from the copy of the note dated August 1 2023,” he said, adding that a senior person like Kumar, who has already reached his age of superannuation, and is working on extension of six months should display a conduct which is model behaviour for other officers in bureaucracy.

He requested the Centre appointed LG to take appropriate action against Kumar for “his deliberate and repeated misconduct” while also requesting Saxena to return the file to CS and direct Kumar to send the file through Bharadwaj. He alleged that there was a “conspiracy” to bypass the entire elected government of Delhi in the matter of appointment of the presiding officer for the mayoral polls.