NEW DELHI: Delhi government has moved Supreme Court challenging the ordinance brought by the Central Government recently to take away the powers of the GNCTD to control civil servants serving it, reports Live Law.
Its aim was to “provide for a comprehensive scheme of administration of services” which “balances the local and domestic interests of people of Delhi with the democratic will of the entire nation reflected through the President of India.”
Seeking to declare the impugned ordinance as “unconstitutional” and quash the same, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led Kejriwal govt argued that they wrest control over civil servants serving GNCTD from GNCTD to unelected Lieutenant Governor.
“Though the Impugned Ordinance feigns a degree of democratic involvement by making stray references to the Chief Minister, it in fact relegates the Chief Minister to being a minority-voice even in the Authority tasked with making non-binding ‘recommendations’. The Impugned Ordinance shows contempt for elected assembly and elected government while making a pretence of their involvement through the Chief Minister,” the plea states.
Laying emphasis on the fact that the ordinance destroys the scheme of federal, Westminster-style democratic governance constitutionally guaranteed under Article 239AA, the plea says that the ordinance seeks to undo the principle of collective responsibility in a democracy.
It was also argued in the plea that centre’s ordinance impermissibly overrules SC's May 11 ruling that granted AAP govt legislative and executive power over all the services except the matters relating to land, public order and police which are out of its legislative domain.
“The impugned ordinance completely sidelines the elected government from the control over its civil servants. It does so without seeking to amend the Constitution of India, in particular Article 239AA of the Constitution, from which flows the substantive requirement that power and control in respect of Services be vested in the elected government. It seeks to revert the situation to what the 2015 notification had sought to install in complete disregard of the top court’s view,” the plea states.