Centre, Delhi seems to have adopted ‘my way or highway’ approach: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed its concern over repeated power tussle between Delhi and Union governments, saying they will have to walk hand-in-hand or at least side-by-side for better governance.

“No governance model requiring such collaboration can work if either of the two sides take a ‘my way or the highway’ approach – which both seem to have adopted," a bench presided over by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said.

The court dealt with the tussle between the two governments in its judgement where it rejected the plea of Facebook India's Vice President and MD Ajit Mohan against the summons issued to him by the Delhi Assembly’s Peace and Harmony committee in connection with February 2020, Delhi riots.

It said three key subjects, public order, police and land, are with the Centre while other sectors are with the Delhi government.

The two powers, unfortunately, do not seek to recognise this aspect, and that is the bane of this structure requiring “collaboration and concurrence”, the bench added.

The bench said, since the Centre and Delhi government have not able to see eye to eye on governance issues in Delhi, this led to a spate of litigation.

“Despite repeated judicial counsel to work in tandem, this endeavour has not been successful,” it said.

The court said some prior discussion and understanding could easily solve this problem instead of wasting large amounts of judicial time repeatedly arising from the failure of the two dispensations to have a broader outlook.