The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted liberty to a lawyer, who who had challenged the appointment of Aam Aadmi Party MP Raghav Chadha as the chairman of the interim advisory committee to Punjab government, to take up all the remedies available to him under law against the decision taken by the authorities in the matter.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha and Justice Arun Palli had in August disposed of the petition with a direction to Punjab government to decide on a representation filed earlier in this regard.
On Thursday, as an application concerning the matter came up for hearing, senior counsel Gurminder Singh, for Punjab government, submitted that the documents leading to the decision taken by the authorities had been supplied to petitioner Jagmohan Singh Bhatti.
Bhatti, in turn, prayed that he may be granted liberty to take up all the remedies available to him under law against the decision taken by the authorities.
“Prayer is allowed. In view of the above, the application filed by the petitioner has been rendered infructuous and is disposed of accordingly,” the bench said.
The Punjab government in July had appointed Chadha, an Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha member, as the chairman of a temporary advisory panel amid sharp reactions from Opposition parties that accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of running a “subservient government” directly under the control of the ruling party’s top leadership in Delhi.
Chadha, who was co-in-charge of Punjab AAP ahead of the elections, was elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state, will head the panel, which would advise the government on matters of public importance. The terms of the committee, announced five days ago, are such that it can be led by a parliamentarian without violating the office of profit rule.