Former SC Judge Madan Lokur questions why the Delhi Ordinance is a “constitutional fraud” and what the “tearing hurry” was

According to a retired Supreme Court judge, Madan B Lokur, the Centre’s Ordinance on the control of services in Delhi violates the spirit of the Constitution and unquestionably overturns the system of government that has been in place in the nation’s capital at least since the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act took effect in 1991.

With the ordinance it enacted on May 19, the Centre once again assumed executive responsibility over service-related issues, including the postings and transfers of Delhi government employees. It was released soon after a Supreme Court decision on May 11 that gave the Delhi government administrative jurisdiction over service-related concerns.

Was there an urgent need to make a change? Was there an urgent situation that called for the use of a constitutionally given exceptional power? Just about a week before to the Ordinance’s promulgation, the Supreme Court resolved a dispute between the Delhi government and the Indian government over the recruitment of and control over employees serving the Delhi government, according to retired judge Lokur.

“The Ordinance has the consequence of removing the Delhi government’s ability to make decisions regarding’services’ for no discernible cause. Instead, it has given the Indian government unchecked authority and reduced Delhi’s chief minister and council of ministers to nothing more than rubber stamps, the newspaper op-ed said.

Additionally, Lokur referred to the Ordinance as a “constitutional fraud on the Delhi people, its elected officials, and the Constitution.”

“Given the scope of the Ordinance, it is abundantly evident that its goal and purpose are to invalidate the majority ruling of the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench. The Ordinance is shown to be a constitutional fraud against the Delhi people, its elected officials, and the Constitution.

Invoking BR Ambedkar’s November 4, 1948, speech on constitutional morality, Lokur said, “the entire exercise leads one to wonder whether Babasaheb Ambedkar was wrong in invoking the spirit of the Constitution and accepting ‘the necessity of the diffusion of constitutional morality for the peaceful working of a democratic Constitution…’.”

Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi chief minister and AAP national convenor, shared the op-ed on Twitter and said it reveals “the unconstitutionalility of the Center’s ordinance.”

The Kejriwal administration has branded the ordinance as “unconstitutional” and said that it would sue to get it overturned.