Delhi Deputy Chief Minister wants action taken against Environment Secretary for 'gross negligence'
The Aam Aadmi Party government and Delhi's Lieutenant Governor are at war again, blaming each other after the tragic death of two young children in the capital drew attention to a delay in banning glass-coated kite strings, commonly known as the Chinese manja.
Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has sought an explanation from Delhi's Environment Secretary Chandraker Bharti after Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia sought action against him in a letter that blamed the top bureaucrat for the delay.
But the L-G's office has also refuted the AAP leader's account of how a draft notification banning the Chinese manja in the national capital was not issued before August 15, when thousands of people fly kites outdoors and lengths of the razor sharp strings hang loose on trees and electricity poles for hours later.
The Delhi government finally banned the Chinese manja on Tuesday, a day after two children aged three and four were killed in separate accidents on Independence Day. The children were looking out of sunroofs in the cars they were traveling when the deadly threads slit their throats, the police said.
Mr Sisodia said the AAP government had approved the ban on August 5 and immediately forwarded it to the Lt Governor's office, which cleared it only on August 9. Thereafter, alleged Mr Sisodia, the environment secretary did not act for a week.
"It was sent to the office of Environment Secretary on August 10....The delay was not on our part but it took four days at the LG's office and seven days at the environment secretary's office," Sisodia said. He has written to the L-G demanding "necessary disciplinary action against the delinquent official."
In Delhi, the Lt Governor, who is the Centre's representative, is the boss of all bureaucrats as the administrative head. The High Court confirmed that this month in a judgement on nine petitions arising out of the power struggle between the L-G and the AAP government.
On Wednesday evening Mr Jung's office asserted that it had received the file from the government only on August 8 and sent it back with signatures the very next day.
Tuesday's notification bans the sale, production and storage of Chinese manja, imposing a one lakh fine or five years in prison or both for violation.
The opposition Congress has demanded a CBI inquiry into the delay, alleging that the ban was held back by the AAP government till after Independence Day to "benefit importers" of the glass-coated Chinese thread.
The Delhi High Court had last week directed the city government to raise awareness of the dangers of the strings, saying there had been a raft of deaths in recent years in the capital.