Chief Justice Dipak Misra<\/a> and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, however, stopped short of acknowledging total statehood for Delhi as demanded by the Aam Admi Party (AAP).<\/p>\nThe judgment pronounced in the court by Chief Justice Dipak Misra also held that the LG cannot act as an \u201cobstructionist\u201d. Two other judges, Justices AK Sikri and AM Khanwilkar, concurred with the verdict.<\/p>\n
The top court made it clear that except for anything related to land, police and public order, the Lt Governor has no independent decision-making powers under the constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lt Governor is an administrator in a limited sense and is not the Governor. He is bound by the advice of cabinet advice in matters other than those exempted,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n
The court said: \u201cThe states should enjoy freedom without unsolicited interference from the centre…popular will cannot be allowed to lose its purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adding muscle to the AAP dispensation, the court observed: \u201cThe NCT requires some kind of freedom, subject to the limitations imposed upon it. The Lt Governor works on the aid and advice of the council of ministers of the state. The Lt Governor must not act in a mechanical manner. The Lt Governor must work in accordance with the council of ministers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur constitution is constructive in nature, with no room for autonomy,\u201d said the bench.<\/p>\n
The reasons listed by the bench were unambiguous. In its order the bench said the Lieutenant Governor cannot act mechanically by referring every Executive decision taken by the state\u2019s council of ministers to the President of India. The court made it clear that while the LG enjoys the powers of an administrator, he must \u201cwork on the aid and advice of the council of ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SC said: \u201cAll decisions of council of ministers must be communicated to the L-G, but that doesn’t mean concurrence of the L-G is required.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bench also observed that \u201cA pragmatic orientation must be exhibited by the centre and the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no room for absolutism and there is no room for anarchism also,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n
However, the bench drew the line at statehood. It said: \u201cThe NCT can never achieve the status of a state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having said that, the court also added that the \u201cLt Governor has limited power, merely as that of an administrator.<\/p>\n
About other nitty gritties, the\u00a0 bench ordered: \u201cThe matter will be listed before the appropriate bench for further hearing as the bench has resolved the main issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Arvind Kejriwal and three of his cabinet colleagues staged a sit-in protest in the L-G office in June. They were protesting against an alleged delay in approval of key policies of the AAP government by L-G Anil Baijal and a “strike” by the civil servants. Kejriwal has launched a fresh “full statehood for Delhi” campaign with the objective of sending a petition to the Narendra Modi government after securing signatures of 10 lakh residents of the city.<\/p>\n
The Delhi High Court had upheld the primacy of the Lieutenant Governor in Delhi in a 2016 ruling. The Kejriwal government moved the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court judgment. The Supreme Court reserved its verdict in the case in December last year. The impending judgment is likely to settle the dispute over separation of powers between the local elected government and the Centre.<\/p>\n
The Kejriwal government fielded a galaxy of senior lawyers including P Chidambaram and Indira Jaising to present its case in the Supreme Court. Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh has argued for the Centre in the matter.<\/p>\n
During the course of the hearing last year, the Supreme Court bench had once observed that it would restrict itself to examining the status of the national capital under the Constitution and lay down a set of principles to govern Delhi. It had refused to get into the issues arising out of Delhi government’s decisions and notifications related to regularisation of guest teachers and AAP’s pet programme mohalla clinics.<\/p>\n
Reactions:<\/strong><\/p>\nThe judgment came as a major victory for Kejriwal and AAP who have been, for the past three years, engaged in a bitter battle with the LG office and the Centre, alleging that successive Lieutenant Governors (first Najeeb Jung and now Baijal) had been creating roadblocks in the functioning of the state\u2019s executive under instructions from the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre.<\/p>\n
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal hailed this as a \u201cbig victory for the people of Delhi\u201d and a \u201cbig victory for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BJP and Congress, which have been talking about limited powers of elected government in Delhi and the supremacy of LG, tried to claim the SC verdict justified their stand.<\/p>\n
While the SC order cited Constituional provisions to restrict the LG\u2019s authority, BJP’s Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari chose to target Arvind Kejriwal saying that he can longer rule in anarchy. \u201cStart following the constitution and work for the betterment of Delhiites,\u201d he wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n
BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli also slammed AAP for terming SC verdict as a “victory” for their party. Adding that the main demand if statehood has been rejected by the Centre, Kohli said, \u201cDon’t understand how Delhi govt is claiming this to be a victory? Their main plank was that this is a state whereas Court has unequivocally said its not a state. They said they had exclusive executive control that was rejected too. This is a UT, Centre has a role to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome the SC verdict. The Delhi government should have been following the law even without the order of the court. We hope, they will do so after the judgement,\u201d BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta said.<\/p>\n
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said the verdict has “decided” that Delhi is a Union Territory and the AAP should stop raising their “political demand” for full statehood to the city. “It is now decided that Delhi is a UT. So, the AAP and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should stop raising the full statehood demand.”<\/p>\n
Former chief minister of Delhi Sheila Dixit said what the Supreme Court has done is to reiterate the role of LG and Delhi government.[\/vc_column_text][vc_raw_html]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[\/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text]\u201cAs per Article 239 (AA) of the Constitution, Delhi is not a state, it is a Union Territory. If Delhi Government and LG don’t work together then Delhi will face problems. Congress ruled Delhi for 15 years, no conflict took place then,\u201d ANI quoted Dikshit.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ruling that the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi is bound to act according to the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers in all matters under its jurisdiction, a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, July 4 set at rest the prolonged tussle over powers between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":46276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497],"tags":[2015,36,23739,320],"yst_prominent_words":[52221,52223,4422,23744,23741,3811,36344,36342,18355,20997,4017,52224,23743,42804,34273,52222,11551,36348,52225,4402],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2018\/07\/04155200\/LG-and-CM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46272"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46272"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=46272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}