In a significant ruling on Friday, the Delhi High Court opted not to compel the convening of a special session of the Delhi Assembly for the purpose of tabling several Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports concerning governance. Justice Sachin Datta acknowledged the considerable delay by the Delhi government in dealing with the matter but held that the court would not intervene to direct a legislative assembly session.
The plea, filed last year by Opposition leader Vijender Gupta along with BJP MLAs Mohan Singh Bisht, Om Prakash Sharma, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Abhay Verma, Anil Kumar Bajpai, and Jitendra Mahajan, sought judicial intervention to mandate the Speaker of the Assembly to schedule a session specifically for the presentation of these audit reports. Advocates Neeraj and Satya Ranjan Swain represented the petitioners.
The court recognized the constitutional obligation to table the CAG reports but refrained from prescribing how the legislative body should fulfill this duty. “The court is not inclined to accept the prayer of the petitioner to summon a special sitting of the assembly,” the judgment read.
The senior lawyers for both the Speaker and the government opposed the petition, arguing that there was no urgency to table the reports, especially given the impending assembly elections. They contended that such a directive from the court would overstep its bounds and infringe upon the legislative prerogatives of the assembly.
