India TV News: Dhairya Maheshwari: New Delhi: Tuesday, January 21, 2020.
In another set of RTI replies, exclusively accessed by India TV News, it has been found that not a single fast-track court to deal with cases of sexual assault was established by the AAP government since 2015. Further, AAP’s promise to farmers remain unfulfilled, as does its pledge to carry out an audit of power discoms
Women’s safety has been put back on the agenda of Delhi assembly elections as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pledged commissioning of “mohalla marshals” in each neighbourhood of the Capital in his “10-point guarantee card” released by himself on Sunday. However, a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by Congress worker Tejpal Singh has found that not a single fast-track court to expedite proceedings in cases of sexual assault had been set-up by the AAP government after it came to power in 2015.
As glaring as it may sound, AAP’s manifesto in 2015 had promised that no less than 47 such courts would be established during the tenure, which began in 2015 after his landslide victory in the last election.
Not only on the issue of women’s safety, a series of RTI applications filed by Tejpal Singh over the last few months have shown that the Kejriwal government has failed to meet some of its other major promises it had made to farmers, among other constituents.
India TV News already highlighted in an article on Saturday, which was the first part in this series, how the AAP government has failed to keep the poll promises it had made to residents of jhuggi jhopri (JJ) clusters, even failing to deliver on its pledges on education, healthcare and transport. This is the concluding article in the series. Here’s what the second tranche of RTI replies have revealed. The copies of the replies have been embedded for our readers:
Not a single fast-track court established
While AAP had promised to established 47 fast-track courts dedicated to handling cases of sexual assault and other crimes against women in its manifesto in 2015, the fact remains that not a single such court was ordered to be set up between March 1, 2015 and August 31, 2019.
“AAP will operationalise 47 new courts that it had commissioned in January 2014 to ensure speedy justice. If required, the courts will be run in two shifts so that the cases involving crimes against women are heard and trials completed within six months,” AAP’s poll manifesto read in 2015.
When an RTI application was filed seeking an update on the promise, the Delhi Court revealed in its reply on Oct 30, 2019, that no fast track court had been set-up in the mentioned time period.
“However, recently on 08.08.2019, the government of NCT of Delhi has sanctioned 18 posts for fast-track courts. These courts are yet to be established,” stated the same reply.
Farmers yet to get relief
In its last manifesto, AAP had rather successfully wooed Delhi’s 40,000-odd farmers and the farming communities by promising to remove “unjust restrictions” on farmers’ rights over the land. Section 33 and 81 of the Delhi Land Reform Act will be removed, the party had stated.
However, despite assurances by the government that it intended to do away with the relevant sections of the Act, no such decision has ever been passed by the state authorities.
“At present, there are no directions regarding abolition of Section 33 and 81 of the DLR Act,” an RTI reply from the Department of Revenue stated on October 24, 2019.
Power discoms’ CAG audit still pending
“We will conduct a comprehensive performance audit of discoms by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India,” stated AAP’s poll manifesto in 2015.
Five years on, the findings of the audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) are yet to be made public. When Singh sought a status update of the poll pledge through his RTI application dated Dec 26, 2019, the Department of Power revealed in its reply that only a draft audit report was received by the state government, as of Jan 13 this year.
“Therefore, until the final report was prepared and presented to the Legislature, it would not be possible to share the draft report in the public domain. Any disclosure of such documents, before by placing it before the state legislatures would amount to breach of Parliamentary privilege. Further, it is to inform that the matter is subjudice before the Honourable Supreme Court of India,” stated the Department of Power’s RTI reply on Jan 13 this year.
Singh alleges that the Delhi government is deliberately keeping the findings of the CAG report from being made public. He further cautions that the “gimmick” of providing free electricity to households clocking below 200 units of electricity would eventually burden the Delhi consumers in the long-run.
Congress worker Tejpal Singh, who has filed a string of RTIs into promises made by Arvind Kejriwal during the 2015 elections, accuses the Delhi CM of not letting the CAG complete the audit into accounts of power discoms
“I used to pay a fixed charge of Rs 168 on my six kilowatt power meter back in July 2012. In August last year, the fixed charge on the same meter came to be Rs 1,021. If one takes the overall picture into account, I used to pay Rs 3 per unit back in 2012, compared to Rs 13 per unit that I paid in August,” he explains.
“How is then electricity cheaper under the AAP government,” he questions, going on to add Kejriwal had only made electricity free after October last year. “Why didn’t he make electricity free for more than four years of his rule? This is just a poll gimmick to hoodwink voters,” he says.
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari has also questioned Kejriwal’s announcement of providing free electricity to households consuming less than 200 units of power. During his appearance at Aap ki Adalat last week, Tiwari has said that he would not contest the upcoming state elections in Delhi if Kejriwal could give his word that he had ensured free electricity to Delhi households consuming less than 200 units of power for full five years of his tenure.
Rajghat power station shut down
One of the other RTIs filed by Tejpal Singh sought information about the number of power stations commissioned by the AAP government after it came to power in 2015. The RTI application was filed on September 19, 2019.
In response, the Indraprastha Power Generation Company and Pragati Power Corporation Limited revealed in a letter, dated Oct 10, 2019, that “no capacity addition” was carried out by either of them between March 1, 2015 and August 31, 2019.
“We will put up Delhi's own power station at the pithead and comprehensively solve Delhi's electricity problem in the long run by being able to meet peak power consumption of 6,200 Mega Watt (MW). We will also ensure that the Rajghat and Bawana plant are efficiently utilized,” the AAP’s manifesto had stated at the time of last assembly polls.
Strikingly, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia announced in July last year that the government had decided to shut down the power plant at Rajghat.
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