Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar has asked the office of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to provide "details of orders and files" based on which the latter had alleged that important policy matters were being directly forwarded to Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, official sources said on Tuesday.
The LG office and the Arvind Kejriwal government have had frequent run-ins over administration and policy-related decisions, including the now-scrapped excise policy.
Sisodia on Friday wrote to Saxena, alleging that the LG Secretariat had “in recent past resorted to the practice of calling for files from various departments through their respective secretaries, the chief secretary and transacting business thereon, such as approving the issuance of notifications, etc., completely bypassing the minister concerned as also the Cabinet".
The same day the deputy chief minister issued an order to the chief secretary, secretaries and heads of departments, blaming them for sending “certain files pertaining to important policy decisions...directly to the LG secretariat without routing the same/putting it up to me as the minister in charge of the department".
He had also alleged that it had come to his notice that “the LG has given direct orders/directions and approvals to officers bypassing the council of ministers”.
An official source said Kumar has written to the secretary to the deputy chief minister, requesting him to provide by January 2 the "details of files and orders" based on which Sisodia made the allegations.
A copy of Kumar's letter dated December 26 has also been marked to all principal secretaries, secretaries, chief executive officers, managing directors, directors, commissioners with instructions to provide details of all such cases referred to by Sisodia, the source said.
-WIth PTI Input
