With great power, respect
SC has made it clear that Delhi government is in charge. Now CM and ministers must trust bureaucracy.
Written by Written by Shailaja Chandra
Updated: May 12, 2023 11:23 IST
AAP rose from the India Against Corruption movement and the CM and his band of ministers looked on officers as being part of the problem. Some called them corrupt. Others humiliated them in meetings, and the stories of what went inside the House committees are legendary some say they were even threats of arrest and jail. The Anti-corruption Bureau (ACB) was reported to have been unleashed on officers.
As Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud read out a unanimous judgment, treating Delhi on par with full-fledged states (except for three entries in the State List), and giving control over the civil servants to the elected government, memories of what has been going on since 2015 flashed before one’s eyes. The need for the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) to abide by the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers on all matters except police, land and law and order was settled by the Supreme Court in its 2018 judgment. However, it had left the question of control over services (officers) undecided. This was addressed subsequently but had to go to a still bigger bench because of dissent.
Finally, we have today a decision which may or may not be followed in letter and spirit but will nonetheless be almost impossible to overturn.
Citizens of Delhi have become accustomed to watching a periodic tug of war between Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the political executive and each of the three L-Gs — starting with Najeeb Jung, followed by Anil Baijal and now, the incumbent, V K Saxena. The conflict came to a head in 2021, when the central government brought an amendment to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, giving supremacy to the L-G over the elected government. It made it incumbent on the elected government to refer almost everything to the L-G and stopped the Delhi Assembly from framing rules, setting up committees or conducting inquiries. This amendment to the NCTD Act was passed as a supplement to the constitutional provision under Article 239 AA and most retired law officers said then, that it was questionable whether Parliament could bypass the constitutional provisions and give more powers to the central government. Whether the Supreme Court has referred to the NCT supplementary amendment Act is not clear right now but by observing that the “L-G’s powers do not empower him to interfere with the legislative powers of the Delhi assembly and the elected government”, it does not uphold the amendment.
While dwelling on the question of services, the apex court observed that “if administrative services are excluded from the legislative and executive domains, the ministers would be excluded from controlling the civil servants who are to implement the executive decisions”. In effect, the verdict makes it incumbent on officers to report to the chief minister and his council of ministers.
One might well ask why the subject of officers and whom they report to should take up the time of a series of benches of the Supreme Court. The IAS cadre referred to as AGMUT is an acronym to encompass the governments they are required to serve — apart from Delhi, the states of Goa, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and the union territories of Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, Daman, Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep and additionally, now, the union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh after these were formed in 2019. The services of an AGMUT cadre officer are placed at the disposal of any of the constituent states or union territories by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. By and large, officers report either to the chief minister or the L-G or the administrator as the case may be. Except for a few aberrations, the officers report that they are treated with respect and consideration and their advice is listened to.
But in the last seven years, Delhi changed this status quo. Officers had grown accustomed to administering a population of some 20 million ranging from the tony areas of Lutyens Delhi and high-end private colonies to massive urban conglomerations like Dwarka and Rohini and a population of some seven million living in unauthorised colonies. Another million live in urban villages and two million in slums. This posed enormous challenges, the likes of which major state governments, though having a larger area and larger populations, do not face in the same way. The challenges of supplying electricity and water, constructing and maintaining flyovers and roads, and managing the interface with the Delhi Development Authority for land, and the Delhi Police for public order (when both organisations report to the Centre through the L-G) are not easy. Unlike Mumbai, which is administered by a single state government, there are multiple bosses in Delhi and the stakes are always high. The media too has all the time for Delhi.
Until 2015, things were manageable. Whatever disagreements and clashes took place remained within the Secretariat and L-G’s office, mostly unknown to the media or citizens. But the Aam Aadmi Party’s chief minister and ministers did not come with long political and administrative acumen and were not versed in the diplomatic ways in which power games are played. Until 2015, the CMs all knew how to get officers to give ideas and implement the decisions as their own.
AAP rose from the India Against Corruption movement and the CM and his band of ministers looked on officers as part of the problem. Some called them corrupt. Others humiliated them in meetings, and the stories of what went inside the House committees are legendary — some say there were even threats of arrest and jail. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) was reported to have been unleashed on officers. Until then, the ACB was an unheard-of organisation in the Delhi government — small, inept, and mostly irrelevant — happy nabbing low-level employees caught red-handed accepting bribes. To go after senior officers was monstrous, say the officers.
When AAP took over, they made their suspicion and loathing of the bureaucracy clear. Time will tell who will do what, when and how. For now, there is no doubt that the interpretation given by the apex court is legal and cannot be belied. But if officers are required to perform and exhibit zeal to get things done, they must be given freedom, trust and respect. That will beget more loyalty and better performance than efforts to harangue them publicly.
The writer is a former Health Secretary and former Chief Secretary of Delhi
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