Fresh stand-off between Najeeb Jung, Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: In a fresh standoff between Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung and the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi, Mr Jung on Tuesday questioned chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to induct five police officers from Bihar in its elite Anti-Corruption Branch, invoking a sharp reaction from the AAP. The L-G was supported by the Union home ministry, which stressed “no appointment can be made in the ACB of the Delhi government without his approval”.

Three inspectors and two sub-inspectors of the Bihar police have recently joined the ACB after a request in this regard by the AAP government to chief minister Nitish Kumar’s office. Sources said Mr Kejriwal has also sent similar requests to non-BJP chief ministers such as West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik to help fill vacancies in the understaffed ACB.

Justifying the L-G’s authority over appointments in the ACB, a senior MHA official said as per the CrPC, the ACB is a police station and the police in Delhi comes under the L-G.

“The L-G is the final and authority for appointments of police, and hence approval of the L-G is necessary while appointing anyone in the ACB as it is also a police station,” the official said. The MHA also argued that an SHO of any state cannot be appointed in any other state arbitrarily without the stamp of approval of the competent authority.

The L-G’s office rejected the appointment of five Bihar police officials and reaffirmed that the ACB works under his direct authority.