Last week, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court (SC), headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), gave the elected government in Delhi control over the bureaucracy. The verdict has wide-ranging implications for national politics and Indian democracy. This is because the court battle was not just another fight between the Narendra Modi-led central government and the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government. It was a fight between two fundamentally different political ideologies confronting the nation.
At one end is the regime that has systematically taken powers away from the elected government in Delhi after the historic verdict for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2015 and vested it in the Lieutenant Governor (LG), an unelected individual nominated by the Centre. This is an ideology that sees every political fight as a zero-sum game and is willing to sacrifice the Constitution of India and fundamental tenets of federalism to show political opponents their place.
On the other end is a regime that has, time and again, sought what is legitimately its domain — the unhindered right to govern the national capital as promised by the Constitution so that the will of the people, expressed through the ballot box, can be translated to reality. The power being sought by Kejriwal wasn’t for himself. This was a fight for the democratic right of the 20 million people of Delhi who cast their vote on election day, hoping that the government they have elected will transform their lives.
To understand the full implications of the SC judgment, one must understand how exactly the matter precipitated. Democracy is all about accountability. Any elected government is held accountable for its work (or the lack of it) every five years through the ballot box. In turn, these elected governments hold the bureaucracy accountable for carrying out their mandate — rewarding those who perform efficiently and punishing those who don’t or work against the interests of the people.
A similar system prevailed in Delhi until 2015, before the AAP government came to power by winning 67 out of 70 seats, limiting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to three seats. This is when the current saga began. Unable to accept the people’s verdict, the BJP-led central government initiated what is nothing short of a constitutional coup to render the AAP government in Delhi powerless.
In a series of orders passed within three months of the formation of the AAP government, the Centre first took away control of the anti-corruption branch (ACB) from the Delhi government. This significantly impaired the ability of the chief minister (CM) Kejriwal to fulfil his most important promise to the people: Crack down on institutional corruption. Incidentally, the number of cases initiated by the Kejriwal government-led anti-corruption branch in the three months of 2015, and the number of corrupt officers arrested, far exceeds the numbers under the Modi government-led ACB in the last eight years.
Next came the order taking away the most crucial layer of accountability between any elected government and its officers by taking the control of the services department from the Delhi CM and giving it to the LG. This effectively reversed the principle of accountability. The Centre started rewarding Delhi government officers when they obstructed the work of the elected government and began to punish them when they were seen to be working on the priorities of the Kejriwal government.
Unprecedented scenes ensued. Officers started routinely skipping meetings called by AAP ministers, some stopped even taking calls from their ministers. In one of the years, out of 20 meetings called by the Delhi environment minister to prepare a winter pollution action plan, only one meeting was attended by the environment secretary.
Crucial departments such as education and health started seeing officers shuffled like a pack of cards. Delhi must be the only state to have seen eight health secretaries in the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, all appointed by the LG without any consultation with the elected government.
Several other actions were initiated by the Centre with the same express purpose of rendering the elected government of Delhi powerless, and centralising all powers in the LG. For the first time anywhere in India, an elected government had to resort to dharnas to get their programmes, such as mohalla clinics, CCTVs on streets for women’s safety, free yoga classes or sending teachers abroad for training, implemented.
It was only due to the sheer will, perseverance and the moral authority of the Kejriwal-led government that it still managed to deliver a substantial part of its mandate and managed to come back to power in 2020, winning 62 out of 70 assembly seats.
Eventually, it took a long legal battle, spanning eight years and multiple benches in the Delhi high court and the SC that culminated in the landmark verdict of the apex court that brought the semblance of democracy back to the national capital.
It bears repeating what the CJI observed while reading out the verdict: “If a democratically elected government is not given the power to control the officers, the principle of accountability will be redundant. If the officers stop reporting to the ministers or do not abide by their directions, the principle of collective responsibility is affected.”
The SC’s 5-0 unanimous verdict also unveils the dark truth of the BJP regime’s ideology and lack of respect for constitutional norms. It sees the Constitution as a transactional document, to be upheld when it suits their political ends, and bypassed as and when it does not. The price for this will not just be paid by the Opposition but by the people of India, as the people of Delhi have in the past eight years.
Jasmine Shah is an AAP leader The views expressed are personal
