India News | Chief Parliamentary Secretaries Cannot Act as Ministers: Himachal HC

Shimla, Jan 3 (PTI) The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday restrained all six chief parliamentary secretaries in the state from functioning as ministers and availing facilities provided to ministers.

A division bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Sandeep Sharma passed the interim order on an application filed by 12 BJP MLAs seeking that the chief parliamentary secretaries be restrained from functioning as ministers.

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Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had appointed Congress MLAs Sanjay Awasthi, Sunder Singh Thakur, Ram Kumar, Mohan Lal Brakta, Ashish Butail and Kishori Lal as chief parliamentary secretaries ahead of a cabinet expansion on January 8 last year and attached them with ministers.

The BJP MLAs have challenged their appointment on the grounds that under the Constitution, the number of ministers cannot exceed 15 per cent of the strength of the assembly, or 12 in the case of Himachal Pradesh, senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, appearing on behalf of the petitioners, said.

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Talking to mediapersons here, Jain said that no state government or state assembly has the right to create the posts of chief parliamentary secretary and parliamentary secretary as it is a violation of Article 164 of the Constitution.

The petitioners referred to the Supreme Court's judgments in similar appointments in Manipur, Punjab and Delhi, where such appointments were struck down by the apex court, Jain said.

The detailed order of the high court would be available on Thursday, the lawyer said.

Jain said the high court has reserved its verdict on the main petition and fixed the next hearing on March 12.

According to Advocate General Anup Rattan, the high court in its interim order has stated that the chief parliamentary secretaries cannot work as ministers.

"In our reply submitted earlier, we have said that the chief parliamentary secretaries are just assisting the ministers. They can give suggestions but not approval," Rattan said.

According to Section 4 of the Himachal Pradesh Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances, Powers, Privileges and Amenities) Act of 2006, parliamentary secretaries and chief parliamentary secretaries cannot approve any action of the state government and the law is being followed, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)