Lieutenant Governor is the “administrative head” of the national capital, the Delhi High Court ruled in 2016 besides pronouncing a series of judgements that came as setback to the Arvind Kejriwal government which had a hate-hate relationship with the Centre over governance.
The body blow given by the judgement denying its claim for full statehood for Delhi had its impact on other agendas of the AAP government which lost its fight in the high court over its right to appoint parliamentary secretaries without the consent of the LG.
While Kejriwal protested the landmark August 4 verdict, Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, who was at loggerheads with the AAP regime and has now resigned, did not miss the opportunity to order re-examination of all decisions of Delhi government, particularly those concerning shuffling of bureaucrats whose postings remained a bone of contention between it and the Centre.
The judgement proved to be a thorn for the Delhi government with the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay it pushing the AAP regime to backfoot as it lost its voice in supporting many of its decisions like the right to appoint Anti- Corruption Branch chief.
However, it later came to the high court with a statement that many of its decisions like appointment of Commission of Inquiry to probe alleged scams in CNG fitness and the Delhi and District Cricket Association, besides selection of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission Chairman was done without the LG’s nod, which was made clear by the August 4 judgement.
While ruling party cadres and its leaders were trying to come to terms with the loss in its fight for statehood, they suffered another jolt when the high court refused to stay criminal defamation proceedings against Kejriwal lodged by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Jaitley also dragged in other AAP leaders — Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai — for their allegations against him in connection with the running of DDCA when he was heading it for over a decade.
