'Bill seeking to replace Ordinance unconstitutional'

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Raghav Chadha wrote to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Sunday, urging him not to allow a bill that seeks to replace the Centre's ordinance on control over administrative services in Delhi to be introduced in the Upper House of Parliament. In his letter to Dhankhar, Chadha termed the Bill "unconstitutional" and urged the Rajya Sabha chairman to direct the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre to withdraw it and "save the Constitution".

The bill seeking to replace the ordinance is likely to be introduced by the Centre in Parliament during the ongoing Monsoon session. The Centre had, on May 19, promulgated the ordinance to create an authority for the transfer and posting of Group-A officers in Delhi, a week after the Supreme Court handed over the control of services in the national capital, excluding police, public order and land, to the elected city government.

The ordinance seeks to set up a National Capital Civil Service Authority for the transfer of and disciplinary proceedings against the Group-A officers from the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Civil) Services (DANICS) cadre. Transfers and postings of all Delhi government officers were under the executive control of the lieutenant governor before the May 11 verdict of the apex court.

"A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that as a matter of constitutional requirement, the civil servants serving in the Government of NCT of Delhi are answerable to the elected arm of the government i.e. the elected council of ministers presided over by the chief minister," Chadha said in his letter to Dhankhar. This link of accountability was held to be "crucial" to a democratic and popularly accountable model of government, he added.

However, in one single stroke, the ordinance has undone this model by seizing this control again from the duly elected government of Delhi and vesting it in the hands of the LG, the Rajya Sabha MP said.