Kailash Gahlot withdraws plea from HC against Centre’s clearance for foreign visits

Former AAP minister Kailash Gahlot on Wednesday withdrew from the Delhi High Court his petition challenging the provision which required state government ministers, including chief minister, to seek political clearances from the Centre for foreign visits. The counsel for the now BJP MLA from Bijwasan constituency told Justice Sachin Datta that he wished to withdraw the matter.

“The petition is dismissed as withdrawn,” the court said.

The petition was filed in 2022 in the backdrop of then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal being denied permission for his visit to Singapore for the 8th World Cities’ Summit that year.

The petition had said this was not the first instance of such “abuse of discretion” and when Gahlot had requested for clearance to visit London on the invitation of Transport for London, there was no response from the authorities concerned in the Central Government till the time the request became infructuous.

The petition sought issuance of guidelines to channel and guide the implementation of several Office Memoranda issued by the Cabinet Secretariat, empowering the Centre to grant or deny permission to state government ministers for foreign visits in their official capacity.

“The whimsical and capricious manner in which travel clearances for Indian statespersons are treated is prejudicial not just to the interests of good urban governance in this case, but also national interests in global platforms generally. Not only has the respondent no. 1 (LG) acted beyond his jurisdiction in advising against the Singapore visit, but the actual exercise of the powers conferred by the Office Memoranda above noted has been manifestly arbitrary and reflects unchanneled and unbridled use of discretion on part of the respondents,” the plea had said.

In November 2024, Gahlot, the Transport Minister, tendered resignation from the Delhi cabinet and subsequently joined the BJP.