New Delhi: The Delhi government’s Women and Child Development (WCD) department has discontinued the services of 223 contractual staff in the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) with immediate effect, citing “irregular” and “illegal” appointments after Delhi Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena approved their removal.
The move will likely widen the rift between the L-G’s office and the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in the capital.
In an order dated 29 April, Navlendra Kumar Singh, the WCD additional director, said that against 40 sanctioned posts, the DCW created 223 posts illegally without following due procedure.
“...taking cognizance of all these irregularities and illegalities made by DCW, the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor has approved the proposal of the department (Delhi government’s Department of Women and Child Development) that the appointments of contractual staff engaged in DCW without having sanctioned posts and without following due procedures is void-ab-initio and the same cannot be allowed to continue in DCW (sic),” the order read.
In February 2017, then Delhi L-G Anil Baijal constituted a committee to examine irregularities such as allegedly illegal appointments in the DCW after the principal accountant general in the audit department of the central government and a special audit by the Delhi government raised these issues.
The WCD additional director’s order noted that the Delhi government had sanctioned only 40 posts in the DCW in compliance with sub-section (i) of section 5 of the Delhi Commission for Women Act, 1994.
“DCW has violated the statutory provisions of DCW Act, 1994, and various standing instructions of the Department of Finance & Planning, GNCTD, by creating 223 posts and engaging staff without following due procedure, i.e., no study was conducted to assess the actual requirement of additional staff and eligibility criteria for each post, no administrative approval and expenditure sanctioned was obtained from the GNCTD for engaging such manpower…,” Singh’s order read.
“...and applications for such posts were not formally invited, role and responsibility for any of these posts were not assigned and emoluments of some of the incumbents, which were decided at the time of initial appointment, were enhanced very sharply and arbitrarily,” it added.
Criticising the action of the Delhi L-G, AAP Rajya Sabha MP and former DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal said at a press conference Thursday that the commission has 90 employees — eight permanent and 82 on three-month contracts. The contractual staff work for low wages, supporting crucial DCW services such as the women’s helpline, rape crisis cell, and mahila panchayat, she said.
“If you remove the contractual staff, how is the women’s helpline and rape crisis cell, (and) mahila panchayat going to work with a staff of eight members? What about the 500 women who come every day to seek help — sometimes, against the police. Where will they go?‘ she asked.
Maliwal also mentioned the sexual assault cased against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna, suggesting that the L-G aims to shut down the DCW. “This is their politics. What will the L-G get by showing such anti-women thinking?” she asked during a press conference.
Also read: Why was Arvind Kejriwal arrested ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Supreme Court asks ED
‘A Tughlaqi order’
In a post on X Thursday, Maliwal wrote, “L-G sahab has issued a Tughlaqi order to remove all the contract staff of DCW. Today, the women’s commission has a total staff of 90, out of which only 8 people have been provided by the government, the rest are on three-month contracts.”
“If all the contract staff is removed, the women’s commission will be locked. Why are these people doing this? This institution has been built with blood and sweat. Instead of giving it staff and protection, you are destroying it from its roots?” her post said.
Maliwal also said in her post that she would not let the women’s commission be closed as long as she is alive. “Put me in jail, don’t torture women,” she said.
LG साहब ने DCW के सारे कॉंट्रैक्ट स्टाफ को हटाने का एक तुग़लकी फ़रमान जारी किया है। आज महिला आयोग में कुल 90 स्टाफ है जिसमें सिर्फ़ 8 लोग सरकार द्वारा दिये गये हैं, बाक़ी सब 3 – 3 महीने के कॉंट्रैक्ट पे हैं। अगर सब कॉंट्रैक्ट स्टाफ हटा दिया जाएगा, तो महिला आयोग पे ताला लग जाएगा।…
— Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) May 2, 2024
On the same day, however, former AAP minister Raaj Kumar Anand attacked the party in a letter to the L-G, saying the AAP government is anti-SC/ST and demanding a Dalit woman as DCW chairperson.
“As a minister, I have myself seen the widespread irregularities prevailing in the social welfare, SC/ST, DCW, and labour departments. The duplicity of the chief minister in words and deeds is shameful,” he wrote on X.
In 2022, the Anti-Corruption Bureau filed a case on a complaint by former DCW chairperson and BJP MLA Barkha Shukla Singh against alleged irregularities in appointments in the DCW during Maliwal’s tenure.
A Delhi court had then remarked that the “appointments clearly reflect nepotism” and framed charges against Maliwal and DCW members Promila Gupta, Sarika Chaudhary, and Farheen Malick.
However, the Delhi High Court, led by a single bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, had put a stay on the trial court’s proceedings against Maliwal by observing that the “essential ingredient of (an) offence under Section 13(1)(d)(ii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, namely obtaining of any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage, is evidently missing” and that any order on the charges requires “closer consideration”.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also read: Why HC pulled up Delhi govt over delay in procuring textbooks — ‘real issue is who takes credit’
Apalling step from LG under orders from BJP! This confirms that LG and BJP are against women. No doubt many BJP leaders are rapists.