‘Rise above political bickering’: Supreme Court to Lt Governor, Arvind Kejriwal
NEW DELHI,JULY 17 : The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to “sit together”, “rise over political bickering” and sort the matter out, as it heard the case related to the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairperson’s appointment.
“We don’t want to step into this and let both constitutional functionaries resolve this. Both of them (LG and Chief minister) should sit together and do the needful,” the court noted.
The court asked Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena and CM Kejriwal to take a decision on the matter and apprise the court about it by Thursday, July 20.
The matter was heard by a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and Manoj Misra. “The two constitutional functionaries have to rise above political bickering and they should give a name for the DERC chairperson,” the bench said.
Senior advocate Harish Salve appearing for the LG said, “In these cases there are no winners and losers.” The bench also asked both the Centre and the state to “rise above the political arena” and decide on the DERC chairperson’s name.
Justice Umesh Kumar’s appointment as the DERC chairperson was made on June 21, despite the Delhi government’s recommendation of Justice (retired) Sangeet Raj Lodha of the Rajasthan High Court for the post.
Later, the Delhi government raised objections to Kumar’s appointment and challenged it in the Supreme Court.
On July 4, the Supreme Court specifically stated that Lt Governor VK Saxena should not request Arvind Kejriwal to administer the oath to Justice Kumar. It said the oath taking of Justice (retd) Umesh Kumar as chief of the national capital’s electricity regulatory authority stands deferred.
It said it will examine the constitutional validity of a provision of the Centre’s recent ordinance governing appointments.
With this, the appointment of Justice Kumar as the DERC chairperson became yet another flashpoint in the turf war between Delhi’s AAP government and the Centre.
-PTI
