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Himachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri said on Saturday that the government is consulting legal experts and has moved Supreme Court days after the Himachal Pradesh High Court quashed the appointment of six chief parliamentary secretaries.
"We are consulting legal experts and we also discussed it in the cabinet meeting. We have approached the Supreme Court...We have nothing to do with what the BJP is saying...BJP does not like the Congress government from day one. They are repeatedly trying to remove the Congress government in the state," he said. Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh also accused the BJP of attempting to topple their government. "Fighting a legal battle is everyone's right, the day this decision came, the CPS' resigned from his posts... Ever since the BJP came to the opposition, it has been trying to topple our government in one way or the other..This battle will be fought strongly politically and legally... We will win this battle strongly," Singh told ANI. Responding to the claims of BJP leaders that membership of the six MLAs, who were appointed CPS, could also be suspended, he said there will be no threat to the government even in the worst case scenario. BJP MP Harsh Mahajan alleged that government made the appointments as there was instability in Congress. "There was groupism and instability within Congress and hence he (CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu) made these appointments and gave them all the facilities that the ministers avail... Any government doesn't make any decision bypassing the opinion of the law commission... We will press for the recovery, and if we have to file a different suit for it, we will do that as well," Mahajan told ANI. Himachal Pradesh High Court earlier this month declared appointment of CPS under the Himachal Pradesh Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances, Powers, Privileges, and Amenities) Act, 2006, unconstitutional. The verdict was delivered by a division bench comprising Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Bipin Singh Negi, who ruled that the 2006 Act lacked constitutional validity. The decision followed a legal challenge initiated by ten BJP MLAs, led by Satpal Sati, along with another individual. They argued that the appointments made under the 2006 Act violated constitutional provisions and bypassed procedural norms. (ANI)
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