Flashback 2015: Odd-even, AAP vs BJP, National Herald kept Delhi HC busy

New Delhi, Dec 27: The AAP government's controversial odd-even scheme and its bitter power struggle with the Centre for the control of the national capital in 2015 echoed in Delhi High Court which also gave a body blow to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul by directing them to appear as accused in the National Herald case before a trial court.

The bitterness between the AAP and the Centre got worse after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal made remarks allegedly defamatory concerning affairs of Delhi and District Cricket Association against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who sued him and his senior party colleagues for Rs 10 crore damages.

However, the political legal battle that would go down in history, was rejection of the pleas by Congress leaders Sonia, Rahul, and four others -- Suman Dubey, Moti Lal Vohra, Oscar Fernandez and Sam Pitroda -- against the summons issued to them in Herald case for allegedly misappropriating funds of Rs 90.25 crore on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's complaint.

Apart from the Congress leaders, AAP also faced several embarrassing moments in the high court due to the alleged fake degrees of its then Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar, Surender Singh and domestic violence case against former Law Minister Somanth Bharti.

Other two MLAs, Jarnail Singh and Gulab Singh sought anticipatory bail in cases of assault. While individual cases against its leaders brought bad name, the biggest embarrassment to AAP came when the high court rejected its much-hyped move to get power distribution companies audited by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

However, there were some cheers for the party as despite severe opposition to the odd-even scheme, the high court did not stay the AAP government's move, saying its just a 15-day trial run.

Much before the Delhi government came up with the odd-even scheme, the issue of air pollution was suo motu taken up by the high court and it had ticked off both the Centre and the AAP government for failing to come up with a concrete action plan to combat the "emergency" like situation by terming air quality in the city as akin to that in a "gas chamber".

PTI