The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that President Pranab Mukherjee had given his consent to Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung’s proposal to invite the single largest party in the Delhi Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party, to explore the possibility of forming a government.
Additional Solicitor-General P.S. Narasimha gave this information before a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justices J. Chelameswar, A.K. Sikri, R.K. Agrawal and Arun Mishra hearing the petition filed by the Aam Aadmi Party seeking a direction for the dissolution of the Assembly.
The CJI expressed unhappiness over the delay by the Centre and the Lt. Governor in taking a decision even after eight months.
“This exercise should have been done by the Lt. Governor much earlier,” the CJI told the Additional Solicitor-General. The CJI wondered why the Centre was always coming out with one statement or the other just a day before the matter was taken up for hearing,” he said.
