Delhi High Court Reserves Verdict On Plea Seeking Special Sitting Of Assembly To Table CAG Reports

The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved verdict on a petition seeking a special sitting of the Legislative Assembly to table various reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

Justice Sachin Datta reserved judgment in the plea filed by Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Legislative Assembly Vijender Gupta and six BJP MLAs Mohan Singh Bisht, Om Prakash Sharma, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Abhay Verma, Anil Kumar Bajpai and Jitendra Mahajan.

The Court heard Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani for the petitioners as well as the counsels for Delhi Government and the Speaker of Legislative Assembly.

In the previous hearing, the Court remarked that the Delhi Government dragged its feet on placing the CAG reports before the Legislative Assembly, calling the situation unfortunate.

The Court had also said that calling for a session was the authority of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and questioned if a mandamus could be issued to the Speaker to do the same especially when the elections were around the corner.

The plea seeks a direction to the Delhi Government and Chief Minister to forward the 14 CAG reports to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and a further direction to the Speaker to summoning  a special sitting and to table the reports before the Assembly in a time bound manner.

The petitioners had last year moved a plea seeking a direction to the Delhi government to send the CAG reports pertaining to "Finance, pollution, administration and liquor" to Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena for presenting the same before the Legislative Assembly.

In the fresh petition, the petitioners refer to a statement made by the Delhi Government on December 16, 2024, that the reports shall be forwarded to the Speaker within two to three days.

The plea claims that as on December 12, 2024, the CAG reports were not received by the Speaker which is a clear violation of the statement given before Court.

Title: VIJENDER GUPTA & ORS v. GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL CAPITAL TERRITORY OF DELHI & ORS