HC junks AAP govt plea for contempt action against ACB chief

The Delhi High Court today refused to entertain the AAP government's petition seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against ACB chief M K Meena for allegedly disobeying the court's order by removing an SHO of the anti-graft body.
The AAP government had alleged that Meena "blocked" work of the Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) and violated the court's order to "act" in accordance with the law.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath, however, said that once it had had held that the Lieutenant Governor (LG) is administrative head and the Delhi government plea challenging curtailment of the powers of the anti-graft body has been dismissed, there is no point to stop the LG appointed ACB head from taking any decision.

"In the light of the said order dismissing the writ petition, we are of the view that the contempt case filed alleging violation of June 29, 2015 order wherein it was observed by the single judge 'in the meanwhile it is expected that Joint Commissioner of Police, Anti Corruption Branch will work in accordance with law' needs no consideration," the bench said.
The court said it is not necessary for it to go into the correctness of the allegations in the contempt case and to return a finding as to whether the conduct of the respondents would amount to wilfully disobedience of the order of this court," it added.

Initially, the AAP government had moved an application for stopping Meena from entering the ACB office and interfering in any manner with the functioning of the body, alleging that he had no authority to do so.

On this, the court had asked Meena to work in accordance with law.
In its contempt plea, the Delhi government had alleged that Meena had arbitrarily replaced the then SHO of the ACB with another person.
It had said that Meena had "wilfully violated" the high court's June 29, 2015 order.
The contempt plea had also alleged that Meena and the SHO appointed by him had not lodged an FIR against two officials of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) who were allegedly caught accepting bribe.

During the hearing on October 27 last year, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for Meena, had said that "there was absolutely no wilful disobedience" by the chief of Delhi's ACB who had acted in accordance with the law by not lodging an FIR.
He had said the high court's judgement, holding the Lt Governor as the administrative head of Delhi and upholding the Centre's notification regarding the ACB's powers, has settled the law and thus "the contempt plea was infructuous".
Delhi government senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra had alleged that a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) had caught the DDA officials red-handed and had gone to the ACB for lodging an FIR.

He had said that even the local police had refused to lodge an FIR in the matter in spite of an SDM asking them to do
so and had let off the accused.
Brushing side Mehra's contention, the bench noted in its verdict that they have in their judgement passed on August 4 last year had held that the ACB police station shall not take any cognizance of offences against officers, employees and functionaries of the central government is in accordance with the constitutional scheme and warrants no interference.
Delhi continues to remain a Union territory under the Constitution with the LG as its administrative head, Delhi High Court had ruled on August 4 last year, dealing a body blow to the Arvind Kejriwal government, which has been on warpath with the Centre over powers.

The special constitutional provision Article 239AA dealing with Delhi does not "dilute" the effect of Article 239 which relates to the Union territory and hence, concurrence of the LG in administrative issues is "mandatory", the bench headed by Chief Justice G Rohini had said.