Miss Alone
Prime VIP
The lieutenant governor is the administrative head of the Capital and is not bound by the advice of the elected city government, the Delhi high court ruled on Thursday, in a huge setback for the Aam Aadmi Party administration.
The court held Delhi to be a union territory – which means the city government has no control over important departments such as law and order and agencies such as the Delhi Development Authority.
“The Delhi council of ministers cannot take a decision without referring to the lieutenant governor first,” the high court said, as reported by news agency ANI.
The decision comes after a months-long bitter turf war between L-G Najeeb Jung and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for the reins of Delhi.
Kejriwal accuses the L-G of acting on the behest of the Centre and bypassing the elected administration while Jung says the AAP government disregards established protocols and constitutional mechanism.
The decision came on a plea challenging two central government notifications that gave L-G Najeeb Jung absolute powers to appoint bureaucrats and restricted the scope of the city’s anti-corruption bureau, considered a pet project of Kejriwal.
Since coming to power two years ago, the Delhi government has repeatedly clashed with L-G Najeeb Jung over bureaucratic appointments and jurisdiction of police.
