The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea filed by Himachal Pradesh government challenging an order of the high court, which nullified a 2006 state law permitting the state to appoint members of the state Legislative Assembly as parliamentary secretaries.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar put on hold the direction passed by the high court, till the next date of hearing before this court.
The court also stayed the High Court's order to initiate disqualification proceedings against the MLAs who were appointed as parliamentary secretaries.
The bench said that there should not be any appointments of MLAs as secretaries in the meantime.
The court gave two weeks' time to the respondents to file their counter-affidavits and two weeks' time thereafter for the state government to file its rejoinder.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A M Singhvi appeared for the Congress government while the respondents were represented by senior advocate Maninder Singh.
The state counsel said similar plea arising out of the decisions of the West Bengal and Chhattisgarh governments were pending before this court.
Singh, while opposing any interim relief, said earlier the apex court had in 2022 struck down a similar law passed by the Manipur government.
Himachal Pradesh filed the plea before the Supreme Court against the high court order, which quashed the appointment of six chief parliamentary secretaries (CPS) by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government and declared the law under which they were appointed void.
The state government, in the appeal, sought authorisation of the appointment of six parliamentary secretaries and said that the high court order was “bad in law” and sought a stay on the HC direction.
On November 13, the Himachal Pradesh High Court quashed the appointment of six chief parliamentary secretaries by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government and declared the law under which they were appointed void.
While quashing the appointment, the High Court had also directed that all the facilities and privileges of the six chief parliamentary secretaries be withdrawn with immediate effect.
The High Court had declared the Himachal Pradesh Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances, Powers, Privileges and Amenities) Act, 2006 as void. The high court had said the officials are usurpers of public office and all facilities extended to them be withdrawn with immediate effect.
Sukhu had appointed the six chief parliamentary secretaries — Sanjay Awasthi, the MLA from the Arki Assembly constituency, Sunder Singh from Kullu, Ram Kumar from Doon, Mohan Lal Barakta from Rohru, Ashish Butail from Palampur and Kishori Lal from Baijnath — on January 8, 2023 ahead of his cabinet expansion.