AAP tells Prez to take action against Sheila

The Arvind Kejriwal government on Monday trained its guns on former chief minister Sheila Dikshit by recommending to President Pranab Mukherjee action against her over alleged wrongdoings linked to regularisation of illegal colonies in 2008.

Ignoring the fact that his minority government is dependent on the support of eight Congress MLAs, the chief minister has taken a bold step towards exposing corrupt Congress leaders by responding positively to Mukherjee’s query on why Dikshit should not face action.

The step also marks, in a way, the beginning of the AAP’s promised action to uncover corruption during the 15-year rule of Dikshit.

The President referred to the Lokayukta’s prima facie finding that granting of provisional certificates for regularisation of unauthorised colonies in 2008 by Dikshit was done to gain political mileage ahead of the Assembly elections, which the Congress won by a majority.

Then Lokayukta Justice Manmohan Sarin in November 2013 gave a report observing that granting of provisional certificates by Dikshit was aimed at political gains.

Justice Sarin said the Delhi government did not comply with conditions set by the Supreme Court on regularisation of over 1,600 unauthorised colonies, many of which came up on government and private agricultural land without any advance provision for water supply, power and sewer lines.

A complaint with the Lokayukta was filed by BJP leader Harsh Vardhan in 2010.

Dikshit faced allegations that provisional regularisation certificates were given to 1,218 unauthorised colonies before the 2008 Assembly polls. She had also promised to regularise all 1,639 colonies, which were home to nearly 50 lakh people.

Just before the polls last year, Harsh Vardhan and other BJP leaders had written to the President demanding action against Dikshit for misleading people into believing that their colonies were regularised in 2008.

Taking a serious view of the case, the Lokayukta on November 5, 2013, held that the issue of provisional certificates to the colonies in 2008 was a violation of the code of conduct by the chief minister, the BJP leaders wrote. 

The Lokayukta, in his 39-page order, also observed that a case could be made out for issue of an advisory to the former chief minister, said lawyer Sunita Bhardwaj, who represented Harsh Vardhan before the Lokayukta on his complaint against Dikshit.

Harsh Vardhan said: “Dikshit had misled the people of the unauthorised colonies by issuing temporary regularisation certificates to their colonies on March 23, 2008. The certificates, which violated the Supreme Court’s orders on the issue, were handed over by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.”