SC directed to present joint arguments on the Delhi Service Bill petition filed by the Kejriwal government

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed both parties to make joint arguments on the Delhi government's petition challenging the Central Government's rule giving priority to the Lieutenant Governor over the Kejriwal government in regulating services in Delhi. Senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi, who was representing the Delhi government in this matter, felt disappointed. Singhvi had demanded an immediate hearing of the case by a constitutional bench of five judges.

In fact, Singhvi asked the bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Mishra to refer the case to a five-judge Constitution bench for immediate hearing. Singhvi stated, "I cannot express the pain of the Delhi government."

In response, the Chief Justice stated that we are now taking cases from the old Constitution Bench.Chief Justice said- We are listing these old cases. Apart from this, two cases are also coming before the seven-judge bench. These are all important cases and have been pending for years.The matter may be listed after some time. Along with this, the bench also asked Singhvi and Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain to sit together and consider the legal questions to be decided by the Constitution Bench in the service dispute. The bench said- We will appoint Shadan Farasat as the nodal lawyer. We will ask them to prepare their arguments by combining them. We are giving a time limit of four weeks for this.

Earlier, on August 25, the apex court had asked the Delhi government to amend the petition challenging the Centre's ordinance giving preference to the LG instead of the elected government in controlling the services and convert it into a petition challenging a law instead of an ordinance. .

It is known that in August, Parliament approved the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill 2023, which is also known as Delhi Services Bill.This gave the Lieutenant Governor wide authority over service matters. After the assent of the President, this bill became law.Just a week before the ordinance was issued, the Supreme Court had handed over control of all services in Delhi except police, law and order and land to the Delhi government.