HP High Court hearing on petition against CPS appointment on April 2

Legal Correspondent

Shimla, March 13

The HP High Court yesterday listed a petition challenging the appointment of Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPSs) for further hearing on April, 2.

No such post existed: Satti

Una MLA Satpal Singh Satti and 11 other BJP legislators had filed a petition before the court alleging therein that no CPS post existed in the Constitution of India or under any statue

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A Division Bench comprising Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Bipin Chander Negi after hearing the matter at length listed it for April 2. Una MLA Satpal Singh Satti and 11 other BJP legislators had filed a petition before the court alleging therein that no CPS post existed in the Constitution of India or under any statue or Act passed by Parliament.

The petitioner contended that the appointment of six CPSs was a burden on the state exchequer. The 91st constitutional amendment had capped the number of ministerial berths to 15 per cent of the strength of the House and hence there were 12 ministers in the state against the strength of 68 of the Assembly.

The petitioner contended that the government had appointed Sanjay Awasthi (Arki), Sundar Singh Thakur (Kullu), Ram Kumar (Doon), Mohan Lal Brakta (Rohru), Ashish Butail (Palampur) and Kishori Lal (Baijnath) as CPSs against the mandate of the Constitution.