New Delhi: The women and child development department of the Delhi government has sacked 52 contractual workers of the Delhi Commission for Women citing violations of rules, drawing a sharp reaction from former panel chief Swati Mailwal, who dubbed the move as a "Tughlaqi farman" of the LG and wondered how the DCW would function with just eight staffers.
"Is this their politics that the commission for women will be shut down? What will the lieutenant governor gain from such a narrow and negative mindset?" Maliwal asked while addressing a press conference. Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj said the DCW did commendable work in helping rape survivors, acid-attack victims and delivering justice to women, and accused LG V K Saxena and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre of stopping the good work being done by the city government.
There was no immediate reaction from the LG's office to the allegations. Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said "the unconstitutional working" of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the national capital, especially Maliwal, is responsible for the action. According to an official, the terminations were effected on the basis of a report submitted by a high-powered committee in June 2017.
Earlier, an order issued on April 29 said the WCD department had terminated the services of 223 contractual staff, but the department issued a clarification on Thursday, saying it had directed for the termination of 52 such employees. According to another official, 223 posts were "illegally" created, but only 52 staffers were hired and the remaining posts were vacant.
The department sent a proposal on the basis of the committee's recommendations to Saxena who approved it, following which the department issued the order, the officials said. Maliwal, a Rajya Sabha MP of the AAP, questioned the termination of the staffers and wondered how will the DCW function if most of its staff are dismissed.
"The LG, in his Tughlaqi farman (arbitrary order), has asked for removing all the contractual staff. There are 90 staff in the DCW, out of whom only eight are permanent and the rest 82 are contractual workers employed for low wages on three-month contracts," she said. Maliwal said if all the contractual staff are removed, then "how will eight employees run the women helpline, crisis intervention centre, rape crisis cell and mahila panchayat? Where will the hundreds of women and girls who come to seek help here go?"
"If all the contractual staff are removed, the women's commission will be locked. Why are these people doing this? This organisation is built with blood and sweat. Instead of giving it staff and protection, you are destroying it from the roots? As long as I am alive, I will not let the women's commission be closed. Put me in jail, do not oppress women," she said.
The high-powered committee was constituted by the then LG Anil Baijal to look into the complaints of "irregular and illegally-created posts and contractual appointments" in February 2017, a statement issued by the WCD department said. "The committee, headed by the then Chief Secretary and comprising Principal Secretary (Finance), Secretary (WCD) and Secretary (Law) as members, after inquiry, had found the appointments and the processes that were followed to be illegal and held the appointments to be invalid ab initio," it added.
The committee had said the appointments of the existing contractual staff engaged, without having sanctioned posts, were void ab initio and they could not be allowed to continue, it said. "However, the DCW and its then chairperson, Swati Maliwal, who in the first instance had appointed these individuals, illegally kept the recommendations of the committee in abeyance and the same could be moved by the WCD department only upon her demitting office recently," the statement added.
The officials said currently, 52 contractual staffers are employed at the DCW. Maliwal said the issue of the contractual staff was never raised during her tenure as the DCW chairperson. "Is this their politics that rapists will roam free and the commission for women will be shut down? What will the LG gain from such a narrow and negative view?" she asked.
On her official X handle, Maliwal posted videos of a few affected DCW staffers, including acid-attack survivor Mohini who said "whether my treatment is delayed or not, I need a profession to earn money so that I can be independent". Another acid-attack survivor, Shabnam, was heard saying in a video that she was attacked in 2011 and her treatment was on in Kashmir. She subsequently came to Delhi for surgery and was given a job at the Mahila Panchayat of the DCW, where she had been working for the last six years.
Bharadwaj accused the LG of stopping all the good work of the Delhi government. "Delhi's LG sahab has rendered thousands of people unemployed in the last year and a half. His aim is to stop all the good work of the Delhi government. Empowering these oppressed girls is true patriotism, humanity, the ultimate religion," he said.
Atishi said the DCW staff helped thousands of rape victims, acid-attack survivors and domestic-abuse victims. "The BJP-led Centre gives poll tickets to rapists by garlanding them and ruins the commission that fights for the rights of victimised, helpless women. The whole country should know: the biggest threat to women in this country is the BJP," she said in a post in Hindi on X.
