The AAP government on Monday in a submission before the Delhi high court has said that once the Centre allocates an IAS officer to it, the question of deciding the specific portfolio or posting of the bureaucrat would be left to the city administration.
The AAP government made the submission before a bench which concluded its arguments in a bunch of matters pertaining to the powers of the lieutenant-governor on the governance of Delhi.
From November 16 onwards, the court will now hear arguments on behalf of the Centre.
“In making the posting or the transfer of an IAS, all that the government was seeking to do was to allocate work consistent with the grade of the officer, in their own cadre,” said senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, appearing for the city government.
“It is a well settled proposition that neither a transfer nor a posting amounts to alteration in the condition of an employment of a public service,” he said, adding that “within Delhi it will be my prerogative, where I (the Delhi government) will post the bureaucrats”. There has been a tiff between the city government and the Centre over the powers of the L-G and the chief minister regarding the governance of Delhi.
A total of seven cases ari-sing out of the spat betw-een the L-G and the Delhi government are being hea-rd together by the bench headed by the Chief Just-ice. On May 28, the Delhi government had approached the high court challenging the Centre’s May 21 notification giving the L-G an absolute power in appointing bureaucrats in the city.
