‘People are boss’, ‘power where it’s due’: Editorials on SC verdict on Delhi powers

A day after the Supreme Court granted a major victory to the Delhi government in its tussle for power with the centre, editorials in prominent English dailies noted that it proves that “people are the boss” and the union government “would do well to heed the larger message”. 

In a unanimous verdict on Thursday, a constitution bench ruled that the Delhi government has legislative and executive powers over services except police, public order, and land.

In an editorial headlined “Power where it’s due”, the Indian Express noted that Delhi’s “special position as the country’s capital requires a careful and forward-looking re-imagination of the federal contract”. 

“However, instead of leading the way towards that end, the Centre has, in recent times, used the L-G’s office to muscle its way into the NCT’s administration. During the hearing of the case, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s reasoning that Delhi is not a full-fledged state invited the CJI’s admonition: ‘What is the point of having an elected government if the administration is to be carried out at the beck and call of the Centre?’ The Centre would do well to heed the larger message in Thursday’s verdict: ‘It has to be ensured that governance of states is not taken over by the Union’. As for the AAP, after it has savoured its moment of victory, it needs to get down to its work with renewed vigour – now it may no longer be able to point to central interference through the L-G as alibi.”

It noted that while the NCT government and the L-G have locked horns several times since 2015 when the AAP came to office with a full majority, “they seemed to have developed a working relationship during the better part of the pandemic. But the relationship was seen to deteriorate after the appointment, last year, of former Khadi and Village Industries Commission chairperson V K Saxena as Delhi’s L-G.”

Meanwhile, the Times of India, in an editorial headlined “People are the boss”, noted that the issue decided by the constitution bench was whether the Delhi government has legislative and executive powers over the city’s bureaucracy, but “that fight engendered many others. From teachers training to power subsidies, AAP has accused successive LGs of interference, and LGs have returned accusations of ‘impropriety’ and worse. The bitter public battles resulted in a bureaucracy caught in the middle of warring chiefs and severely affected governance.”

“Delhi has had enough of this”, it stated, pointing to a “lesson for everyone”. “When people elect governments, governments must, within well-understood constitutional boundaries, be allowed to govern, including in allocating duties to officers. And if duly elected state governments must always be in lockstep with the Centre then there isn’t much to be said about our federalism. The chatter after the SC verdict is that AAP is again the boss of the Delhi government. The more profound point is that the people are the boss.”