A day after the appointment of nine advisers and consultants to several AAP Ministers in Delhi were scrapped in the wake of the Centre’s move raising objections to their posts, one of the sacked advisers, Raghav Chadha, returned to the Union Home Ministry an amount of Rs 2.50 which, according to Chadha, was his total remuneration during his stint with the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government.
Chadha said he sent a letter to the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, enclosing a demand draft of Rs 2.50 as “refund” of remuneration that he had received from the Delhi government for his services.
Stating that he had been an adviser to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia from 16 January 2016 to 31 March 2016 for preparation of Delhi’s annual budget for the financial year 2016-17, Chadha said he was offered an honorarium of Re 1 per month for it and that he had thus earned a “princely sum of Rs 2.50 for 75 days of his work”.
“While we cannot change what is in the past, please accept enclosed a demand draft of Rs 2.50 in favour of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that I earned in my capacity as an adviser as a token of my remorse,” Chadha sarcastically wrote in his letter to the Home Minister.
A chartered accountant by profession, Chadha said he was hired by the Delhi government for a specific time period for his expertise with an aim to make “pro-people Budget”.
Taking a swipe at the BJP-led Centre for appointing BJP leaders like Sambit Patra and Shazia Ilmi as directors of public sector companies, Chadha also referred to the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh government’s move to accord the Minister of State rank to several religious figures or “babas” in this regard.
In a flare-up of confrontation between the Narendra Modi government and the Kejriwal government, the appointment of nine advisers and consultants to several AAP Ministers were scrapped on Tuesday at the Centre’s behest.
According to an order issued by the General Administration Department (GAD) of the Delhi government on Tuesday, the MHA had written in its letter dated 10 April to the GAD that these nine posts “on which the appointees are officiating are not in the list of posts approved for the Ministers and the Chief Minister”.
The GAD’s order said, quoting the MHA’s letter, that “no prior approval of the central government has been taken for creation of said posts on which these persons have been appointed on co-terminus basis”.
It also said the MHA’s 2015 notification had clarified that “services” under the Delhi government ~ which includes creation of services/posts, co-terminus or otherwise ~ is a subject reserved for the central government as per the Constitution.
The services come under the Lieutenant Governor (LG), the Centre’s representative in the national capital.
The GAD orders dated 17 March 2015, however, indicated that two of these sacked advisers ~ Arunodya Prakash (media adviser to Deputy CM Sisodia) and Amardeep Tiwari (media adviser to Law Minister) ~ had been appointed with the consent of the then LG Najeeb Jung.
According to these two separate GAD orders, the two advisers had been appointed on contract on co-terminus basis, which had also made it clear that they will remain in service till the tenure of the present government or till their services are required by the Ministers of Delhi government, whichever is earlier.
AAP sources told The Statesman that based on these GAD orders the Kejriwal government would challenge the sacking of its advisers by the Centre in court.