How can you be selective in accepting SC verdict: Kejriwal to L-G

Ananya Panda 

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 9

With the Centre, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and the Aam Aadmi Party government refusing to budge on the services issue, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday urged Baijal  to fully implement the Supreme Court order “in letter and spirit” delivered on July 4. 

In his letter to Baijal, Kejriwal decried the stand of the Ministry of Home Affairs on services issue, asking how can anyone accept and implement the SC ruling selectively. 

“The MHA does not have the power to interpret the SC order, and if you have any confusion about it kindly approach the court for clarifications. But do not violate the SC order,” Kejriwal wrote.

The letter comes in the backdrop of conflicting interpretations by the two of the landmark judgement of the SC which had in its ruling last week clarified on the legal positions of executive powers shared between the L-G and the Delhi Government going by the existing constitutional provisions. 

The top court had restricted the L-G from acting independently barring matters related to land, police and public order as spelt out in Article 239 AA and allowed the elected government to take decisions. 

The SC ruled that in routine matters the L-G is bound by the aid and advice of the elected government even as it kept the specific pleas on services and Anti-Corruption Bureau of Delhi Government, arising out of the MHA’s May 2015 notification, to be decided by its regular Bench. 

Soon after the SC verdict, the Kejriwal government introduced a new system for transfers and postings of officers and employees in Delhi declaring the Delhi CM and his Cabinet ministers the approving authority for the same in succession of the two orders by MHA. 

The move obviously set the stage for the ongoing war on services after the department concerned refused to follow the government’s directive saying previous orders remain valid as also maintained later by Baijal and MHA.