Despite being the national capital of India and home to most of the VVIPs, the question to govern the city has remained “much discussed” since the 1987 Balakrishnan Committee report gave special status to Delhi which placed it somewhere above the other union territories (UT) and somewhere below the states.
With 28 states and eight UTs in the country, the Constitution clearly underlines that the UTs will be ruled by the President through an Administrator appointed by him/her.
The Administrators of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi and Puducherry are designated as L-Gs.
The Governor of Punjab is concurrently the administrator of Chandigarh. The Administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli is concurrently the Administrator of Daman and Diu. Lakshadweep has a separate Administrator.
Out of eight UTs, only two — Delhi and Puducherry — have a Legislative Assembly and Council of Ministers.
The Legislative Assembly of Puducherry may make laws with respect to matters enumerated in List II or List III in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution in so far as these matters are applicable in relation to the UT.
Meanwhile, the Legislative Assembly of National Capital Territory of Delhi has also these powers with the exceptions and the certain categories of bills, however, need the prior approval of the Centre for introduction in the legislative assembly.
The ‘conflict of governance’ between the Delhi government and L-G comes from the point that the city got a Legislative Assembly through the S Balakrishnan Committee constituted in 1987 to look into the issue of the Reorganisation of Delhi.
The Committee’s report said that Delhi belongs to the nation as a whole, but it is also inhabited by its own people.
The report rejected the popular demand of giving statehood to Delhi because doing so will give Delhi a disproportionate presence in comparison to other states of India.
However, four key subjects — public order, police, services and land — are with the Central government, while other sectors are with the city government.
The Assembly has the power to make laws with respect to all the matters in the State List or in the Concurrent List of the Constitution of India except Entries 1 (Public Order), 2 (Police), and 18 (Land), and entries 64, 65 and 66 relatable to the said entries of the State List.
The Delhi government, however, will have to get the L-G’s nod for making any minor or major changes.
“There cannot be two parallel and concurrent governments altogether in any state. Delhi also has only one government and that is the Central government. Even Parliament has passed an act that says that the government means the L-G of Delhi. The elected leaders are the representative of the people and are advisors to the L-G who can assist in the governance, but cannot govern,” said S.K. Sharma, former Secretary of Lok Sabha and Delhi Assembly.
Sharma hadworked during the formative years of the Delhi Assembly as the secretary.
In his complete tenure, he served with four former Chief Ministers of Delhi — Madan Lal Khurana, Sahib Singh Verma, Sushma Swaraj and Shiela Dixit.
He further said that whatever bills are passed from the Delhi Legislative Assembly, its Clause 2 definition clearly says, “government means the Lt. Governor of Delhi”.
So all the elected body actually help in governance, they do not govern. The conflict arises because the Delhi Chief Minister or any minister equate themselves with the counterparts of the other states which is not the correct.
“The Delhi Assembly cannot legislate on four subjects — land, police, services or public order. And the fundamental principal of governance says that those who don’t possess legislative power, they cannot even exercise executive power. If a legislature doesn’t have the power to legislate, it implies that they do not have the power to execute also,” the former secretary said.
Even, barring these four key subjects, there has been a rider attached to other subjects, not through Constitution, but via the transaction of business rule.
The rider says that the Delhi Legislative Assembly can legislate but only after seeking prior approval from the Centre.
It clearly establishes that unlike other state Assemblies, Delhi’s Assembly or its Chief Minister is bound by certain constitutional provisions and cannot work as freely as they do, Sharma concluded.
–IANS