Parliamentary Secretaries Case, Caveat Filed In SC

Parliamentary Secretaries Case, Caveat Filed In SC 1/24/2009 Social activist Aires Rodriges filed a caveat before the Supreme Court praying that no appeal filed by the Goa government challenging the High Court order here on the Parliamentary Secretaries be entertained without he being heard. It might be recalled that Goa-bench Bombay High Court had on January 22, in its 108-page verdict, had set aside the appointments of Parliamentary secretaries while disposing of a public interest litigation filed by Mr Rodriges. The high court, which held that the appointments were arbitrary, unjustifiable and unconstitutional, however, gave four weeks to the state government to file an appeal against the order in the apex court. Meanwhile, Mr Rodriges demanded the state government to recover entire expenditure incurred for over the last 18 months on the parliamentary secretaries Nilkanth Harlankar and Francisco Silveira. He said he was also moving the Supreme Court on the issue of cabinet status bestowed on EDC Chairman Agnelo Fernandes, Deputy Chairman of Goa Planning Board Wilfred De Souza and Commissioner of NRI affairs Eduardo Faleiro with the High Court not dealing at length on the issue in the January 22 verdict. The court in its order upheld the confermenty of cabinet status on the three politicians and rejected the plea of Rodriges for nullifying the appointments. ‘If the trend of giving cabinet status goes unchecked, the government will appoint politicians as chairman of various corporations and confer them with cabinet status thus defeating the very intent of the 91st amendment to the Constitution by doing indirectly what cannot be done directly,’ Mr Rodriges averred. In his PIL, he maintained that the appointments were a ‘fraud on the constitution and a heavy burden on the state exchequer’. UNI

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