New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) Top constitutional experts would appear before the Supreme Court on Friday to argue on behalf of the Himachal government and some Congress leaders whose appointment as parliamentary secretaries was quashed by the Himachal Pradesh High Court recently.
Among the top lawyers include former union minister and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, while senior lawyer and former union minister Anand Sharma would be representing one of the affected parties.
It is after a gap of almost 27 years that Anand Sharma would appear as a member of the bar before the court of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna.
Himachal Pradesh moved the Supreme Court seeking authorisation of the appointment of six parliamentary secretaries which was recently quashed by the high court recently for being illegal and unconstitutional.
The high court had on November 13 quashed the appointments by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government and declared the law under which they were appointed void.
In its appeal before the top court, the state government said the high court order was “bad in law” and sought a stay on the HC direction.
“The legal consequence would be that six parliamentary secretaries, who are also MLAs, are likely to face disqualification under Article 192 of the Constitution as the protection granted to them from the office of profit norms has been taken away, without adjudication, causing political instability,” the appeal filed by the state government said.
While quashing the appointment, the high court had also directed that all the facilities and privileges of the six chief parliamentary secretaries be withdrawn with immediate effect.
It was for the second time that the appointments of the chief parliamentary secretaries or parliamentary secretaries have been quashed in the hill state.
On August 18, 2005, the high court had quashed the appointments of eight chief parliamentary secretaries and four parliamentary secretaries. PTI SKC ZMN
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