‘Services’, officers not under UT government control: centre

A bench of justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan was told by Attorney General (AG) K K Venugopal, appearing for Centre, that it is the Union of India that exercises control through its representative or administrator on the Union Territory (UT).

“As far as services are concerned they have a special cadre of officers and not the All India cadre of IAS or IPS. The officers are from separate cadres like the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service (DANICS),” the AG said.

The Centre is leaving no stone unturned to buttress its stand and has decided to field three senior advocates Harish Salve, C Aryaman Sundaram and Rakesh Dwivedi to defend it in the matters related to disputes with the Delhi government, including that of control over services.

The bench was hearing pleas filed by two Congress leaders S Dhanalakshmi and K Lakshminarayanan, challenging the “unilateral” decision of the Centre to appoint the three BJP members as MLAs in the assembly.

It had also held as invalid the speaker’s order cancelling the nominations of the MLAs.

Venugopal, during the hearing before the apex court, said that as per the Constitutional scheme every UT shall be administrated through the President and its delegatee who can be an administrator or the lieutenant governor (L-G).

He said, “It is not a federal unit which could function independent of the central government. It has no autonomy or autonomous powers.”

Meanwhile, in a separate development, the Centre in a notification has said lawyers Salve, Sundaram and Dwivedi will defend it in the matters related to the disputes with the Delhi government.

On Wednesday, the Delhi government had told the apex court that its functioning is “completely paralysed” and it can’t order transfer or posting of officers despite the recent Constitution bench verdict on the national capital’s administration.