Manish Sisodia likely to attend Joint Cadre review of AGMU

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has sought permission to attend a crucial meeting over impending transfers and postings of bureaucrats at the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Thursday.

The move has caused some uneasiness to the Centre and the Ministry’s representatives who fear it will set a “dangerous precedent”.

According to MHA sources, Mr. Sisodia wrote to the Union Home Secretary on Tuesday informing the Ministry that he would attend the meeting of its Joint Cadre (review) Committee for all-India AGMU cadre instead of Delhi Chief Secretary K.K. Sharma.

A Delhi government official attributed Mr. Sisodia’s move to two objectives: ensuring that the AAP government’s choice of Additional Commissioner of Police (Anti-Corruption Branch) Surender Singh Yadav does not run into trouble and that the position of M. K. Meena, Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung’s pick as Joint Commissioner of the ACB, is not strengthened.

Incidentally, both officials are due for promotion and Mr. Meena, as per an MHA directive dated April 28 which was stayed after his recent posting, is scheduled to be transferred to Arunachal Pradesh.

Rules and protocol governing the exercise, however, are not in Mr. Sisodia’s favour, according to a senior MHA official. Going by the book, the meeting is “solely a bureaucratic affair” with “no scope for the accommodation of political representatives”.

“Only Chief Secretaries are allowed to attend the cadre review meeting as representatives of respective State governments. Furthermore, political representatives of Union Territories cannot have a say in the pool of both IPS and IAS officials available for posting since crucial subjects such as land, law and order are beyond their jurisdiction,” the official said.

A source told that Mr. Sisodia would, at most, be accommodated till the extent of being “asked to convey his message to the committee via a written communication and no further”.