Centre gets more time to file reply on plea against Asthana's appointment

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday granted time to the Centre to file reply to a petition challenging the appointment of Gujarat-cadre IPC officer Rakesh Asthana as Delhi Police Commissioner.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh allowed the plea by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for granting some more time to file the response and listed the matter for further hearing on September 16.

The high court, which had on September 1 issued notices to the Centre and Asthana on the petition, issued a fresh notice to the IPS officer as it was not served to him due to want of payment of process fee by the petitioner.

The bench was hearing the PIL by Sadre Alam, a lawyer, against the appointment of Asthana along with an intervention application by an NGO which has challenged the appointment before the Supreme Court.

Advocate B S Bagga, representing Alam, apologised for the delay and assured the court that the process fee would be deposited during the day.

During the brief hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO — Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), reiterated that Alam's petition was mala fide and a "complete copy-paste" of his plea pending before the apex court.

He said the court should see whether this kind of mala fide petition should be entertained.

Mehta said he was in agreement with Bhushan and this practice of copy-paste must be deprecated.

He commented however that if Bhushan makes plea public before filing it, nobody is to be blamed.

To this, Bhushan replied that most of the information was in the public domain.

The petitioner has sought quashing of the July 27 order issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs appointing Asthana as the Delhi Police Commissioner and also the order granting inter-cadre deputation and extension of service to him.

The plea also sought initiation of steps for appointing Delhi Police Commissioner strictly in accordance with the direction issued by the Supreme Court earlier.