Govt served legal notice challenging appointment of five people

Panaji, July 11 (UNI) Noted social activist Adv Aires Rodrigues today slapped the Goa Government with a legal notice challenging the recent appointment of five politicians in the status of Cabinet rank for political expediency with a bearing on the exchequer.

The government had appointed three MLAs Mr Nilkanth Halarnkar (Tivim-NCP), Mrs Victoria Fernandes (Santa Cruz-Cong) and Mr Francis Silveira (St Andre-Cong) as Parliamentary Secretaries with rank/status of Cabinet ministers.

It also appointed Congress legislator from Calangute, Mr Agnelo Fernandes as Chairman of the EDC Limited and besides former deputy chief minister and now President of the NCP Dr Wilfred D'Souza (who lost from Saligao) as Deputy Chairman of State Planning Board, both in the Cabinet status.

Adv Rodrigues has demanded immediate revocation and cancellation of the appointments, which, if not done within three days, he said, he would be constrained to move a public interest litigation before the High Court of Bombay at Panaji for appropriate reliefs.

Copies of the legal notice have also been sent to Governor S C Jamir and Chief Minister Digambar Kamat besides the five appointees.

In his notice, addressed to Chief Secretary J P Singh, Adv Rodrigues has drawn attention to Section 164 of the Constitution of India whereby the total number of ministers including Chief Minister in the State of Goa should not exceed 12.

By appointing these five people, the total number of persons with the rank/status of a Cabinet minister has risen to 17 as 12 ministers had already been appointed as against the spirit of the 91st Amendment to the Constitution of India restricting the size of the Cabinet to prevent Jumbo size cabinets with a huge financial burden to the State Exchequer.

The five appointments, Mr Rodrigues said, had defeated the very purpose of the amendment of the Constitution and they amount to ''a fraud on the Constitution of India''.

He further stated in the notice that there was no law, which empowers the Government or the Chief Minister to make appointments of Parliamentary Secretaries with Cabinet status or conferring Cabinet status to Chairman of EDC Limited and Deputy Chairman of Goa Planning Board.

''These appointments have been made to confer largesse on party and coalition members for political patronage with ulterior motives and are illegal and malafide,' he stated.

Mr Rodrigues in his notice has also drawn attention to the judgement of the Himachal Pradesh High Court wherein such appointments of Parliamentary Secretaries had been set aside.

''Political appointments are also being made of MLAs and party functionaries to the posts of Chairman and Heads of various State run Corporations in bounds throwing all qualifications to the winds and to merely satisfy party and coalition members for political gains by way of political patronage to prop up the Government,'' he added.

UNI