Case pending for 3.5 years with no end in sight, says AAP

NEW DELHI: Soon after the Supreme Court referred the matter pertaining to services — which deals with transfer and posting of officers of the Delhi government — to a larger bench, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said that judiciary was taking way too long in giving its decision as the issue had been pending before the apex court for the last 30 months.

Unhappy over a split verdict on the contentious issue, the AAP posted a video clip of Bollywood actor Sunny Deol’s movie ‘Damini’ on its Twitter handle and captioned it “tareekh pe tareekh” (hearing after hearing) with hashtags #Delhivscenter and #Services.

Later, the video was also shared by AAP’S Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh. The party said before reaching the Supreme Court, the matter was pending with high court for over a year.

Addressing a press conference, senior AAP leader Atishi said it was natural to raise questions on the judicial process as the courts (the high court and the SC) have taken up nearly 3.5 years in hearing the case related to division of powers between the Delhi government and the Centre, represented by the lieutenant-governor.

Atishi, who is also AAP’S Lok Sabha candidate from east Delhi, said the case started in May 2015 and till August 2016, it continued in the high court. Then, it went to the Supreme Court. Since the beginning, the Delhi government counsel has said the matter should be heard by the constitution bench but the Centre’s counsel insisted that it be heard by the division bench only.

“For four months, we argued in front of the division bench and when the turn for the Central government’s arguments came, they requested that the matter be heard by the constitution bench. That way, the case was delayed by four months. It took another six months to form the constitution bench. The arguments before the constitution bench ended November 2017 but the verdict was delivered in July 2018 ,” she said. In the July verdict, the Supreme Court had clarified that other than the reserved subjects – land, public order and police – Delhi government has control over all other subjects. ‘Services’ and two other matters were referred to a division bench, who had to give a verdict in detail in spirit of the constitution bench.

“With the Supreme Court referring the issue of services to a larger bench, the timeline is that this issue is pending before Supreme Court since September 9, 2016 — it’s been 30 months and counting,” Nagendar Sharma, media advisor to the CM, said in a tweet.