Kejriwal is right

On this issue Kejriwal is right

As I had mentioned in my interview with Rahul Kanwal, how can a government run unless it has officers in whom it has confidence ? After all, it is the officers who have to implement the policies of the government.

Najeeb Jung's claim that he can appoint senior officers of the Delhi government at his own discretion (meaning the discretion of his masters ), and not on the advice of the Delhi Chief Minister, is wholly unacceptable in a democracy.

 Kejriwal's claim that Shakuntala Gamlin wanted to trick his government into giving Rs. 11,000 crores to power companies may or may not be correct. But one thing it certainly proves is that Kejriwal has no confidence in Ms. Gamlin. How, then, can she be thrust as Acting Chief Secretary on an unwilling Chief Minister ?

 As I had pointed out in my interview, Delhi is not an ordinary Union territory like Andaman Islands or Lakshadweep, which have no legislatures or Council of Ministers, but are run by an Administrator appointed by the Central Government. Delhi ( and Pondicherry ) have both a legislature and a Council of Ministers.

  There is no doubt that in view of Article 239AA of the Constitution, which created the NCT of Delhi, three subjects are reserved for the Centre : public order, police and land, while the others are in the domain of the Delhi legislature and administration.

 As regards public services, there may be a grey area, but the ambiguity should be resolved by interpreting Article 239AA democratically, rather than in an authoritarian manner, since admittedly India is a democracy. Hence the Delhi government should have the right to choose officers in whom it has confidence.

  After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England the principle of supremacy of the legislature over the king has been firmly established, and in Shamsher Singh vs. State of Punjab, 1974, a Constitution Bench of the Indian Supreme Court has held that the Indian President or Governors are only like the British king, that is , having no real executive powers except ' the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn ', as Walter Bagehot in his book ' The English Constitution ' mentioned.

 In a democracy it is the people who are supreme, and the people operate through their elected representatives. The President of India, Prime Minister, other Ministers, Judges, bureaucrats, police, army, etc are nothing but servants of the people.The legislature, elected by the people, therefore represents the 'general will' ( to use Rousseau's terminology ) which is supreme. Najeeb Jung, being unelected, is only a servant of the people, and must behave as such. However, as I mentioned earlier, like Faust he has shamelessly sold his soul to a Mephistopheles