NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that the affidavit filed by Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia on the row involving postings and transfer of civil servants in the capital has only brought unnecessary political slugfest to the court.
The AAP government has blamed L-G VK Saxena for “derailing governance” of Delhi. The affidavit carrying such references is an abuse of the process of law. The political slugfest has come at a time when the constitutional issue relating to ‘services’ between Delhi and Centre is scheduled for hearing before a constitution bench on Nov 24, ASG Sanjay Jain told the bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli. Jain also took exception to the part of the affidavit wherein the AAP government has asked the Centre to respond within a week. He said the affidavit filed by the government was deliberately leaked to the media to make it a big issue.
Jain’s submission came against the backdrop of the request made by the AAP government urging the bench to direct the Centre to file its reply. Appearing for the state, senior advocate AM Singhvi told the bench that the affidavit laid emphasis on the factual position of a parallel administration being run by Saxena.
“Today every bureaucrat isn’t answering me, not responding to my calls,” said Singhvi. The CJI said that the issue before the five-judge bench was with regard to “control over services” and that the bench would not deal with “political issues.”
Freezing the rights of the parties to file further replies, CJI said, “We won’t direct them to file any reply. We’ll deal with the constitutional issue and can step back from the actual arena of conflict. We will not ask for a reply now otherwise people will start filing affidavits.”