Delhi HC stays non-bailable warrant against ACB chief MK Meena till 23 September

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday stayed till 23 September the non-bailable warrant against ACB Chief MK Meena issued by a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) set up by the AAP government to probe the CNG fitness scam, on the Centre’s plea seeking its quashing. [caption id=“attachment_2434770” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] MK Meena. IBNLive[/caption] “Wait till September 23. Till then do not precipitate matters. Don’t take any coercive steps,” a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said. “Pending further orders in the petition, proceedings with regard to September 11 order (of CoI) shall remain stayed,” the court said. The order came on the Centre’s plea challenging the 11 September order of the Delhi government-appointed CoI which had issued the NBW against Anti-Corruption Branch Chief Mukesh Kumar Meena. The CoI, appointed to probe the multi-crore CNG fitness scam, had also directed attachment 30 percent of Meena’s salary till the records pertaining to the inquiry conducted by the ACB were presented to the probe panel. The Centre’s plea was first mentioned by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain before a bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva which directed that the matter be listed before an appropriate court today itself. Thereafter, the plea was listed before the chief justice. Apart from the order, the Centre has also challenged the constitutionality of and the establishment of the CoI. The CoI, whose appointment was declared “invalid” by Union Home Ministry last month, had directed Delhi Police to execute the NBW and apprise it of action taken by Tuesday. In August, the AAP government had appointed Justice (Retd) SN Agarwal, a former judge of Delhi and Madhya Pradesh High Courts, to head the one-man probe panel under the Commission of Inquiry Act to probe the scam in which a number of officials of erstwhile Sheila Dikshit government were under the scanner. Meena, appointed by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, had also probed the CNG fitness scam and the ACB had filed a charge sheet in court earlier this month. The Commission said Meena “deliberately failed to produce the records pertaining to its inquiry”. The AAP government has been accusing the Lt Governor of trying to shield the officers found guilty by a CBI probe into the scam which was detected by Delhi Government’s ACB in 2012. On 3 September, the Commission had issued summons to Meena to appear before it as he had passed an order that “no information pertaining to the case will be shared with the Commission”. The Union Home Ministry had called setting up of Commission by the Delhi government “illegal”. The CNG fitness scam had surfaced in 2012 when the ACB found that Delhi government had lost over Rs 100 crore by awarding a contract to operate and maintain certification of CNG vehicles at the transport authority in Burari to ESP India Pvt Ltd instead of ESP USA. The charge sheet was filed before Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry in the case in which several persons were arrested in 2013 for allegedly siphoning off crores of rupees in conducting fitness tests of commercial vehicles in the national capital in connivance with the transport department. In June, when the AAP government had directed ACB to reopen the case, the LG’s office had said the Justice Mudgal committee which had probed the case had found no mala fide on part of any government functionary. PTI