Sir,
On 4th July, 2018, in a huge relief to the AAP Government in Delhi, and in a strong rebuke to the obstructionist behaviour of the Lieutenant Governor (‘LG’) of Delhi, the Constitution Bench of Supreme Court unanimously held that LG is an administrative head in the limited sense, and is not a Governor. He is bound by the aid and advise of NCT Government in areas other than those exempted by the Constitution, i.e., land, police and public order.
As per the Supreme Court decision, the GNCT has power over all subjects, except three, which does not include ‘service’, thereby indicating that GNCT would have powers over the service conditions of the bureaucrats serving in the Delhi Government. Now it remains to be seen whether the judgment is followed in its true spirit or not.
Whatever may be the outcome of this decision, the Supreme Court judgment is a stinging rebuke of the highly unconstitutional methods adopted by the Central Government to strangle the administration of NCT. With its repeated emphasis on cooperative federalism and representative democracy as well as on constitutional morality, the Apex Court sought to remind the Central Government that India is still a federal country, where the States have a critical role in the governance, and representing the will of its people. Delhi may not be State, but it has a representative form of Government, which cannot be throttled, and the State be governed remotely through the office of LG. It is an affront to the citizens of Delhi who have exercised their democratic right to elect a Government of their choice, and also to the will of the Parliament, which expressly provided a representative government to Delhi under Article 239AA.
Amritananda Chakravorty
New Delhi
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