NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court declined to instruct the Delhi Legislative Assembly to convene a special session for the presentation of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports on Friday.
“Court is not inclined to accept the petition for summoning a special session for laying the reports,” stated Justice Datta.
The bench, headed by Justice Sachin Datta, acknowledged the delays by the Delhi government in presenting the reports. The court indicated that tabling the CAG reports is a constitutional requirement but opted not to issue a judicial order to summon the assembly.
The petition was submitted the previous year by opposition leader Vijender Gupta and BJP MLAs Mohan Singh Bisht, Om Prakash Sharma, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Abhay Verma, Anil Kumar Bajpai, and Jitendra Mahajan. Advocates Neeraj and Satya Ranjan Swain represented the petitioners.
During the proceedings, the Delhi government and the assembly speaker opposed the request, contending that there was no urgent need to present the reports before the elections, as the assembly’s term will conclude in February. The assembly secretariat added that tabling the reports at this time would not serve any useful purpose and emphasized that such matters pertain to the assembly’s internal operations.
Earlier, on January 13, during a hearing, the court remarked that the CAG reports should have been promptly submitted for discussion in the assembly and that the state government “dragging its feet” on the matter raised “doubts on its bonafides.”
However, the court reserved its final order on January 16 after listening to arguments from all involved parties.
