Restrain Your Ministers, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tells Arvind Kejriwal

In a sign of brewing tussle, Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena on Tuesday wrote to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal refuting his deputy Manish Sisodia's charge of favouring the BJP and urged him to restrain his ministers from making "misleading" assertions.

Mr Saxena was reacting to a letter by the deputy chief minister wherein he accused the L-G of "bulldozing the law" to favour the BJP in connection with allowing the Anti Corruption Branch to probe the alleged irregularities in the construction of seven temporary hospitals during the Covid pandemic.

"It is both sad and surprising to note that vide the above letter, the deputy chief minister has made factually and legally incorrect statements on the subject matter while unnecessarily politicising a desirable administrative action," Mr Saxena wrote in the letter to Mr Kejriwal.

He reminded the chief minister of their agreement over "zero tolerance" against corruption, that was reached during their meetings every Friday, and sough his cooperation in doing so.

"In the interest of good governance, I would further urge you to advise your ministers to refrain from such unproductive and poorly evidenced assertions, which are both misleading and obstructive in nature," he wrote.

Mr Saxena also explained the legal position of his authority vis-a-vis the charges made against him by Mr Sisodia.

The Delhi High Court in its judgment on August 4, 2016 has held that according to the constitutional scheme of governance of Delhi, the "services" fall outside the purview of the Legislative Assembly of Delhi, he said.

"This judgment still holds the field as the civil appeal filed by the elected government on this issue is yet to be heard by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court," Mr Saxena pointed.

The permission for conducting enquiry into the complaint of corruption against officials of PWD has been granted after careful examination and strictly in accordance with the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and the provisions of law as settled by the courts, he stated.

Mr Sisodia had asked in his letter under whose "pressure" Mr Saxena had approved investigation by the ACB over a year old complaint when it was rejected by his predecessor Anil Baijal as "frivolous and baseless".

A complaint over alleged irregularities in the construction of temporary hospitals by the Public Works Department (PWD) was lodged by BJP MP Manoj Tiwari.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)