In 2015, soon after the Aam Aadmi Party won the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections by a significant margin, the central government issued a notification taking control over services in the National Capital Territory (NCT). This sparked an eight-year long legal battle between the Delhi government and the central government, involving four rounds of litigation before the Supreme Court of India. In May 2023, the Court ruled decisively in favour of the Delhi government. However, rather than being the end of the battle, the Court’s decision turned out to be only another pit stop. Within days, the central government, acting through the President of India, issued an ordinance amending the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act of 1991. Through this ordinance, the central government sought to undo the Court’s judgment: it explicitly deprived the Delhi Legislative Assembly from enacting laws pertaining to services within the NCT, and, instead, set up a parallel body, comprising the Chief Minister and two bureaucrats, who would be responsible for taking service-related decisions with respect to Delhi.
In effect, a case of being handed back
Shorn of legalese, and in effect, the Delhi Services Ordinance takes away the control of services from the elected government of Delhi, and hands it back to the central government. A close look at the ordinance reveals two justifications offered by the central government. At the level of policy, the central government argues that Delhi’s status as the national capital requires a “balancing” of interests between the elected Delhi government, and the government at the Centre. At the level of law, it is argued that Article 239AA of the Constitution (which encodes Delhi’s “special status”) expressly authorises Parliament to pass laws with respect to fields that are normally within the exclusive competence of the States. One of these fields is that of “services”.
