HC cracks whip, says CPS posts unconstitutional

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday struck down the provision of appointing chief parliamentary secretaries (CPS) in Punjab, calling the post unconstitutional. The order will have wide-ranging ramification, not only in Punjab but also Haryana and all other states where CPSs have been appointed.
The court quashed the appointments mainly on the ground that these were against Article 164 (1-A) of the Constitution which restricted the number of ministers to 15% of the total strength of a state assembly.The petitioners, advocates Jagmohan Singh Bhatti and H C Arora, had argued that the Punjab government had appointed CPSs just to circumvent the Constitution to provide illegal benefits to the MLAs of the ruling party.
A division bench of Justice S S Saron and Justice Ramender Jain invalidated the appointments while allowing the petition challenging the constitutional validity of the CPSs. HC has held that CPSs are in the nature of junior ministers who change with the government of the day.
"The appointments of chief parliamentary secretaries are contrary to the Constitutional intent of limiting the number of ministers or the size of the Cabinet. The appointments as made, therefore, are in fact a roundabout way of bypassing the mandate of the provisions of Article 164 (1A) of the Constitution and, therefore, have to be invalidated. For the foregoing reasons, both the writ petitions are allowed and the appointment of the private respondents in both the petitions and their continuing as CPSs are set aside, invalidated and quashed".
The order would also have a bearing on the four CPSs in Haryana who were appointed by the BJP government led by Manohar Lal Khattar in July 2015. These too had been challenged on the same ground. In Delhi, the Arvind Kejriwal government has appointed 21 parliamentary secretaries which has been challenged in the high court.
Punjab had appointed as many as 24 CPSs all of whom will now lose the post. Prominent among them are cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sindhu's wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu and senior Akali Dal leaders Virsa Singh Valtoha and N K Sharma.
The Parkash Singh Badal government had appointed as many as 18 CPSs after coming to power in April 2012. Another six appointed in April this year. Punjab can't appoint more than 18 ministers given that it has 117 seats in the assembly.
The two lawyers had said in their petition that there was no provision for CPSs in the Constitution and that these were a burden on the state exchequer. They argued that CPSs were treated as de facto ministers as they enjoyed the same financial benefits. This included salary, traveling expenses, salaries of the attached staff, medical bills, telephone bills and even government accommodation.
They also argued that neither the rules of business of the Punjab government nor the rules of conduct of business of the state legislative assembly envisaged any role for CPSs.