Delhi Vs Centre: Order reserved on plea to refer to larger bench

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on the Centre's submission that the dispute about the control over services in the national capital be referred to a five-judge bench, a plea which was strongly opposed by the AAP-led Delhi government.

We will consider and take a call as early as possible, a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli said after hearing Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Central government and senior advocate A M Singhvi who was representing the Delhi government.

While reserving the order, the bench said in the case, that it decides to constitute a five-judge bench to hear the issue then the hearing has to be concluded before May 15 so that the vacation time can be used for preparing the judgement.

Singhvi said This court is not here to refer every time the slightest thing is pointed out. How does this matter, if there were three or five judges. It is not about why not, it is about why. The bench said there were two parts of the constitutional provision, the problem arises when they refer to a provision but there is no conclusion, then it becomes a necessity to refer it to a larger bench.

Singhvi said though there was no ambiguity in the previous 2018 constitution bench judgement, but, if there was any, even then it can be decided by the present bench.

The existence of a substantial question of law does not weigh on the stakes of the case. Here there is a constitution bench judgement already. There have been six requests for adjournment and now they want it to be referred to a larger bench, Singhvi said.

The solicitor general, on the other hand, said that the matter needed to be sent to a constitution bench on grounds including that the earlier judgements of the five-judge bench did not give any roadmap to decide as to whether the union or the Delhi government will have the competence to deal with the subject under dispute.

There has been a finding of the bench that there was no consideration on certain aspects by the larger constitution bench and hence the dispute needed to be referred, Mehta said.