New Delhi: In a huge setback to the Kejriwal government, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a Delhi High Court judgement declaring Delhi a Union Territory and Lieutenant Governor (L-G), Najeeb Jung its administrative head and all decisions will have to be taken with his consent.
A bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and N.V. Ramana also declined to stay at least the functions of a three-member committee appointed by the Lt. Governor pursuant to the HC judgement to examine whether any criminality is involved in the decisions taken by the AAP government.
The Bench after hearing a slew of senior lawyers led by K.K. Venugopal and Gopal Subramanium on a batch of seven appeals filed by the AAP government challenging the verdict asked the Centre to file a counter affidavit in six weeks, rejoinder in two weeks and posted the matter for final hearing on November 15.
Mr. P.P. Rao, Mr Rajeev Dhavan, and Ms. Indira Jaising were the other lawyers who represented the NCT in this case. When Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi submitted that the matter will have to be referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench, Justice Sikri said “we will first have preliminary hearing and if necessary we will refer the matter to a larger bench.”
At the outset, Mr. Venugopal submitted that the Lt. Governor had been making deliberate attempts to stall the functioning of the democratically elected government of the NCT. Even for filing this appeal, the Secretaries had been told to take his consent when he himself would be a respondent and officers are afraid to sign any file.
The Governor has now tied down the hands of the Secretaries and completely thrown out the elected representatives who are unable to function.
