Delhi HC questions maintainability of plea in phansi ghar summons row

Vijender Gupta cited building plans showing the room was a tiffin shaft, leading to removal of murals and renaming of the space restored in 2022 as a memorial.

The Delhi High Court on Monday clarified that it has not granted any interim stay on the proceedings initiated by the Delhi Legislative Assembly against former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the “phansi ghar” controversy.

The petition argues the committee cannot probe actions of the previous Assembly and that the phansi ghar inquiry falls outside the privileges panel’s jurisdiction. (Shutterstock)

This came after the Assembly’s counsel, Jayant Mehta, informed a bench of justice Sachin Datta that both leaders had refused to appear despite summons issued on November 13 and 20, citing the pendency of their petition before the court.

Mehta told the court that although Kejriwal and Sisodia had not sought interim relief earlier, they were now treating the ongoing committee proceedings as effectively stayed. “They’re writing to us that the matter is pending before the high court. They’re treating the entire proceedings to have been stayed,” he submitted.

Appearing for the two AAP leaders, advocate Shadan Farasat defended their decision not to appear, arguing that once a petition challenging the Assembly’s power to issue summons was before the court, it was customary for parties to refrain from participating in proceedings whose legality was under scrutiny.

Justice Datta, however, noted that the court had issued no interim order and added that it had reservations about whether the petition was maintainable at all. “There is no interim order. I’m hearing on maintainability. The maintainability is doubtful,” he observed.

The petition filed by Kejriwal and Sisodia challenges the Assembly’s authority to summon them, arguing that the notices were issued without following proper procedure. They also contended that the committee’s mandate – to verify the authenticity of the so-called “phansi ghar” – fell outside the remit of the current Assembly’s privileges committee. They argued that acts of the seventh Assembly could not be examined through privilege proceedings by the eighth Assembly.

Previously, the Delhi Legislative Assembly had called the petition misconceived and premature, asserting that the committee was merely conducting a factual inquiry. Mehta argued that the notices under challenge were not related to breach of privilege but were simply requests for assistance and information. He described the petition as a “classic case of jumping the gun,” meant to pre-empt the committee’s fact-finding process.

The court has listed the matter for its next hearing on December 12.

The issue snowballed into a controversy earlier this year when current Speaker Vijender Gupta challenged the previous AAP government’s claim that a room in the Assembly – restored in 2022 and presented as a memorial honouring freedom fighters – had been used by the British to hang revolutionaries. The restored chamber featured murals of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, a symbolic noose, and heritage-style brick walls. A plaque credited to Kejriwal and former Speaker Ram Niwas Goel stated: “Innumerable unknown freedom fighters have been hanged here.”

During the monsoon session in August, Gupta produced building plans indicating that the room was actually a service shaft or tiffin lift area. The memorial elements were subsequently removed, and the site renamed the “tiffin room.”

On November 4, the Assembly committee issued summons to four AAP leaders, including Kejriwal and Sisodia, asking them to appear on November 13 to verify the authenticity of the phansi ghar. A week later, Kejriwal wrote to the committee calling the proceedings legally untenable and beyond its jurisdiction, arguing that he could not be summoned for decisions taken during a previous Assembly’s tenure.