Challenge to Asthana's appointment as CP, Delhi: Verdict reserved by HC

New Delhi: Filing public interest litigations (PILs) has become an industry and a career in itself, the Centre said in the Delhi High Court on Monday as it argued that the appointment of Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as Delhi Police Commissioner deserved no intervention.

(They say) there are good officers. Who are they? Are they the persons who possibly felt aggrieved? PIL is an industry, a career by itself, which was not envisaged, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued before a bench headed by Chief Justice DN Patel which reserved its verdict on lawyer Sadre Alam's PIL against Asthana's appointment.

Mehta, representing the Centre, stated that Asthana was appointed as Delhi Police Commissioner after following the due procedure, as applicable to the national capital, and a PIL could not be permitted to be a forum for settling scores.

Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, representing Asthana, claimed before the bench, which also comprised Justice Jyoti Singh, that the petitioner was a proxy for somebody who does not want to come in the front and holds personal vendetta.

People are always aggrieved if some peer or someone in the same service is selected. But here there is no (such) challenge. They are people who are educated, at the pinnacle of their career, he stated.

Both Centre and Asthana objected to the intervention plea filed by Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), which has already moved the Supreme Court against the appointment.

Neither the petitioner nor the intervenor is entitled to be heard by the court because of the malafide conduct, said senior lawyer Rohatgi.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing CPIL, stated that Centre's stand that it found no eligible officers in the Union Territory cadre for appointment as Delhi Commissioner was astounding and had a demoralising effect.

He also claimed that the petition here was a copy-paste of the organisation's plea before the top court.

On August 25, the Supreme Court had asked the high court to decide within two weeks the plea pending before it against the appointment of the senior IPS officer as Delhi Police Commissioner.

Lawyer B S Bagga, appearing for the petitioner, denied the allegation of mala fide and contended that Asthana's appointment was in the teeth of the settled service law.

However, the High Court has already remarked that Alam's petition, did, in fact, seem to have been copied from Bhushan's.