Days after the Supreme Court pronounced its landmark judgement over jurisdiction of powers between the Centre, Lieutenant Governor (LG) and Delhi government, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia are expected to meet Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal at 3 pm on Friday.
The SC on Wednesday clipped the powers of the LG, saying he has no “independent decision-making power” and has to act on the aid and advice of the elected government. The judgement was passed by a five-judge constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, laid down broad parameters for the governance of the national capital, which has witnessed a bitter power tussle between the Centre and Delhi government since the Aam Aadmi Party government came to power in 2014
The meeting between the Centre, LG and Delhi government came after a new tussle broke out on Thursday with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claiming that the powers to transfer or post officers lie with the Delhi Government while a Union minister said Delhi as a Union Territory makes its powers subservient to the Central government.
Delhi’s Chief Secretary (Services) yesterday refused to issue an order that the Council of Ministers in Delhi would decide on departmental transfers and postings. The AAP government asked the officers to respect the Supreme Court order, saying disobeying it amounted to contempt of court and would invite serious consequences.
Taking to Twitter, Kejriwal posted, “All officers should respect and obey SC order. Open defiance of SC order shall invite serious consequences. It will be in no one’s interest.”
He had also penned a four-page letter to LG Anil Baijal and stated that after the Supreme Court’s verdict, the executive powers related to ‘services’ lie with the elected government and not with the LG or Central government.
“The Central government or the LG have executive powers only on three subjects. On all other subjects, executive powers lie with the Council of Ministers. Therefore, executive power related to ‘services’ lies with the council members,” the letter reads.
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The Chief Secretary, on the other hand, cited a 2015 notification of the Ministry of Home Affairs as the reason for rejection, saying it has not been specifically quashed.
Calling this ‘contempt of court’, Kejriwal said, “The said notification becomes infructuous in the light of clear orders of the Supreme Court. The judgement of the court has been effective the moment it was pronounced. If the files related to services are placed before the LG and he acts on them, it would clearly amount to contempt of Supreme Court in the light of its judgement.”
Reacting over the development, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, said that the refusal by senior bureaucrats to comply with Supreme Court ruling amounted to contempt of court. Sisodia said the government was now seeking legal opinion on the matter. “The Chief Secretary has written to me saying the services department will not abide by the court’s order. This will also create problems for the officers if they do not abide by the order. If the LG, even after the court’s order, insists to see the service department file, then that is a contempt of court,” he said.
“If the orders of a court, that too the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, are openly violated, then the country would go into a state of chaos. Where will be the law then?” Sisodia asked saying, “The centre, the LG or the officers may not like the court order but they will have to abide by it.”