Friday, Apr 26, 2024 | Last Update : 03:15 AM IST
Supreme Court refuses to stay HC verdict on Lieutenant-Governor powers
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a Delhi high court judgment declaring Delhi a Union Territory and lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung as its administrative head with all decisions requiring hi
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a Delhi high court judgment declaring Delhi a Union Territory and lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung as its administrative head with all decisions requiring his consent.
A bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and N.V. Ramana also declined to stay, at least, the functions of a three-member committee appointed by the L-G pursuant to the HC judgment to examine whether any criminality is involved in the decisions taken by the AAP government.
The bench after hearing a battery of senior lawyers led by K.K. Venugopal and Gopal Subramanium on a batch of seven appeals filed by the AAP government challenging the verdict asked the Centre to file a counter affidavit in six weeks, rejoinder in two weeks and posted the matter for final hearing on November 15. P.P. Rao, Rajeev Dhavan, and Indira Jaising are the other lawyers who represented the NCT in this case.
When attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi submitted that the matter will have to be referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench, Justice Sikri said, “We will first have preliminary hearing and if necessary we will refer the matter to a larger bench.”
At the outset Mr Venugopal submitted that the lieutenant-governor has been making deliberate attempts to stall the functioning of the democratically elected government of the NCT.
Even for filing this appeal, the secretaries have been told to take his consent when he himself will be a respondent and officers are afraid to sign any file. The L-G has now tied down the hands of the secretaries and completely thrown out the elected representatives who are unable to function.
Mr Subramanium drew the court’s attention to a committee set up by the L-G to scrutinise the decisions and in this process it has taken away over 400 files to find out whether criminality is involved in these decisions taken prior to the HC judgment.
The government cannot function, he said and pleaded for stay of at least the functions of this committee. The bench, however, refused to grant stay and said it will hear the main appeal.
