AAP vs L-G: No room for anarchy, says SC

The BJP asked Aam Admi Party (AAP) to end its demand for full statehood of Delhi after the Supreme Court while laying down rules for Delhi's governance stated that the Capital cannot get the status as per the current constitutional provision.

Even though the Supreme Court did not deliver a judgment on the subject as it was hearing an appeal by the Delhi government challenging a Delhi High Court order giving supreme powers to the Lieutenant Governor (L-G), it made a reference to the long-standing demand.

While delivering a verdict on the powers of Delhi government and the L-G, the court dealt with the over-a-century-old history of the city since it became the Capital of India in December 1911.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said the verdict has "decided" that Delhi is a Union Territory (UT) and the AAP should stop raising their "political demand" for full statehood.

The court referred to the Balakrishnan Committee set up in 1989 by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to deal with the matter. The committee had felt that there is a conflict of interest between the need to develop the national Capital for the nation as a whole and the desires of the local population for a greater autonomy in the conduct of their own affairs and rejected the idea of statehood.

The committee opined that "the national Capital belongs to the nation as a whole" and hence a demand for full statehood could not be entertained, the judgment said.

The committee recommended that Delhi should continue to be a UT but there must be a Legislative Assembly and a Council of Ministers responsible to the Assembly with appropriate powers.

"Having regard to this history and background, it would be fundamentally inappropriate to assign to the NCT a status similar to other Union territories," the SC said in its judgment.

FOR GOVT

• The elected representatives being accountable to the public must be accessible, approachable and act in a transparent manner. 
• Thus, the elected representatives must display constitutional objectivity as a standard of representative government which neither tolerates ideological fragmentation nor encourages any utopian fantasy, rather it lays stress on constitutional ideologies.
• The Cabinet owes a duty towards the legislature for every action taken in any of the ministries and every individual minister is responsible for every act of the Ministry.
• A balanced federal structure mandates that the Union does not usurp all powers and the States enjoy freedom without any unsolicited interference from the Central Government with respect to matters which exclusively fall within their domain.
• The states under our constitutional scheme were not carved as separate islands each having a distinct vision which would unnecessarily open the doors for a contrarian principle or gradually put a step to invite anarchism. Rather, the vision enshrined in the Preamble to our Constitution, i.e., to achieve the golden goals of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity, beckons both the  Union government and the state Governments, alike. The ultimate aim is to have a holistic structure.