On January 10, the Supreme Court's constitutional bench, led by Chief Justices D. Y. Chandrachud, M. R. Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli, and P. S. Narasimha, began hearing on the dispute between the Delhi government and the union government over control of administrative services in the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the government of the NCT of Delhi, was heard by a five-judge bench. A three-judge bench referred the case to the Constitution Bench last year."There are four or five broad themes. This is the case at the core- it is not merely about distribution of powers and the balance between the government of India and the NCT. It is about whether civil servants serving in the NCT are accountable through the government, the ministerial responsibility, and through them to the people of Delhi which elected the Delhi government. Civil servants must be accountable to ministers. That is the first leg of the chain. The buck stops at the minister, he takes the responsibility, but they are accountable internally to the ministers. Second, the minister is accountable to the legislature. This is the heart of the whole system. Otherwise the whole system cannot function. Finally, the members of the legislature are accountable to the people who elected them. This is the triple basis of how the accountability of the civil servants gets fused ultimately with the people who elect the government" stated Dr. Singhvi.

Further examining the submission by Dr. Singhvi, Justice Chandrachud stated "In the case of the NCT, the Parliament can enact law on any subject in the state list also- that is the difference between the NCT and a state. So in that sense, the state list and the concurrent list are both concurrent. That is why it is a UT. This is very interesting. If you see article 162 of the Constitution, the Proviso, what happens in the concurrent list. Take the case of Maharashtra or Odisha, forget the NCT- If the Parliament is operating on the concurrent list, then what is the executive power of the state in the Concurrent list? The same analogy will apply to the NCT in case of the state list because for the NCT, the state list is also the concurrent list"

According to Justice Chandrachud, Article 162 states that, subject to the provisions of the Constitution, a state's executive power shall extend to matters over which the legislature of the state has legislative authority. The judge referred to the proviso appended to the Article, which states: Provided that in any matter with respect to which the Legislature of a state and Parliament have power to make laws, the executive power of the state shall be subject to, and limited by, the executive power expressly conferred by this Constitution or by any law made by Parliament upon the Union or authorities thereof.

Dr. Singhvi then took the bench through judgments. Observing which the Justice Chandrachud stated “So these judgments show that the Executive power of the union extends only to the three excluded subjects. The executive power of the NCT of Delhi extends to the subjects in the state list and concurrent list to which the legislative power of the state assembly extends except these three excluded subjects"

Case Title: Govt. Of NCT Of Delhi V. Union Of India
Citation: Civil Appeal No(s).2357/2017