It was not only UT Advisor Pradip Mehra, who exercised quasi-judicial powers and reviewed his own orders, his predecessors also exercised the same powers. As many as 143 cases have been reported, in which the previous and present Advisors exercised the powers and reviewed their own orders. The UT Vigilance’s report has brought out the revelations, which the Vigilance Department is likely to submit to the UT Administration soon.

In March, UT Administrator General SF Rodrigues (Retd) had asked the Department to probe the six cases against Mehra, in which he had allegedly exceeded his quasi-judicial powers.

The move came after UT’s Senior Standing Counsel Anupam Gupta was asked to give his opinion on the legal standing of such orders reviewed by Mehra. Subsequently, Gupta had submitted his 32-page opinion on the issue to Rodrigues. Gupta, in his opinion (copy of which is with Newsline), concluded, “It is impossible to resist the conclusion that all the six review cases are cases of conscious favouritism in the exercise of power.”

Sources said the Department has finalised its inquiry report and is likely to submit it to the Chief Vigilance Officer Ram Niwas soon.

The Department examined voluminous records pertaining to exercise of such powers by previous advisors and concluded that the six cases, in which Mehra reviewed his own orders, were not an exception and the same practice had been happening in the past also.

Gupta, in his opinion submitted to Rodrigues, had specifically mentioned, “The frequent exercise of the review powers in the past by both Neeru Nanda and Virendra Singh, during their respective tenures as Advisor to the Administrator, cannot serve to create a jurisdiction, which can be conferred only by statute. Nor does it legitimise the exercise of such non-existent jurisdiction in some cases, while denying its existence in others, as happens to be the case with Pradip Mehra.”

... contd.