AAP-LG Feud Moves to Supreme Court: We will not be Puppets of the Centre, Says AAP

NEW DELHI: The battle royal between the Delhi Government and the Lt Governor backed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, over jurisdiction and powers is now moving into the Supreme Court for a resolution of the issue that has kept both governments at loggerheads for days now.

The Delhi High court described the MHA gazette notification barring the anti-corruption bureau of the Delhi government from probing and acting against central government officials, as ‘suspect.’ The Home Ministry has appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the tag ‘suspect’ maintaining that the HC had ruled on an issue that was not before it at the time.

AAP leader Ashutosh told The Citizen that for the first time since independence a government at the centre had tried to amend the Constitution through an executive order. He said that while land, law and order and police came under the jurisdiction of the central government, services was with the Delhi government.

The central government and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, he said, had now tried to place services under the jurisdiction of the centre. “We will not be puppets of the central government,” Ashutosh said, insisting that they would fight this attempt to violate the Constitution and the law by the NDA government till the very end.

Interestingly several constitutional experts have come on to the side of the Delhi government on this issue. Rajeev Dhawan, Indira Jaisingh and others have pointed towards the unconstitutional position taken by the Lt Governor and the central government, with Supreme Court advocate and constitutional expert Sanjay Hegde also maintaining that the MHA notification was indeed suspect. He said at a meeting organised by the IWPC, “The conflict between the Delhi government and Central government has arisen because of the MHA notification that states that services was and will always be part of the remit of the L-G. So effectively, what it has done is add one more subject to the three subjects where Delhi Legislature does not have any power to legislate.”

He further added, “that in my mind is constitutionally impermissible. Anything that has to be changed in the constitution, should be amended by the Parliament. That not having been done, the notification would be suspect and if challenged in court I don’t see how it could be sustained.”

Ashutosh said that AAP and the Delhi government had full faith in the apex court. “I am sure justice will be done,” he said.

The notification by MHA places it on the same side as Lt Governor Jung who has been in a running battle over power with the Delhi government. The AAP position, as explained by Ashutosh, is that the LG has himself violated the Constitutional provisions that clearly state that when there is an impasse of this sort, both sides will approach the President of India to resolve the issue. This, he claimed was not done by the LG and hence constituted the first violation, as he issued orders without consulting President Pranab Mukherjee in the first instance.

Delhi government is firm that ‘services’ do not come under the jurisdiction of the central government that has tried to usurp this through an executive order, whereas any such change in the provisions required a constitutional amendment through Parliament.

The two issues currently creating the conflict fall under the ‘services’ sector that both governments insist is with them. The two points within this is the authority, or otherwise, of the anti corruption bureau of the Delhi government to probe central officers and secondly, the power to appoint, remove and transfer state government officials. MHA insists that this power rests with the Lt Governor, hence the centre. Kejriwal is equally adamant that this power crucial to the efficacy of the state government rests with Delhi.