The Centre on Thursday justified in the Supreme Court its decision to keep the Delhi Assembly in suspended animation.
It said it would not be expedient or in the public interest to dissolve the Assembly and hold elections so early as the House was formed only on December 28 last year.
A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and Dipak Misra examining the Aam Aadmi Party’s petition questioning the constitutional validity of the presidential notification keeping the Assembly in suspended animation.
The party alleged: “The Union Cabinet decision in not advising dissolution of the Assembly and holding elections simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls was to sub-serve the interests of the major political party at the Centre. It was designed to prevent the electorate from exercising its vote and preference at an election in Delhi and to strike at the opponent AAP.”
The case will come up for further hearing on March 7.
Rejecting the allegations, the Centre in its reply through Additional Solicitor General K.V. Viswanathan said: “The petitioners are wrong in asserting that there is absolutely no possibility of formation of any government.”
On the charge that Delhiites had been denied their democratic right to have an elected government, the Centre said: “The democratic right of the citizens of Delhi obligates the Lt Governor and the President to explore every possibility of a popularly elected government emerging from the duly elected Assembly.”
On the allegation that the recommendation of the majority government led by the AAP to dissolve the Assembly could not have been refused, the Centre said on the day when permission was refused to table the Jan Lokpal Bill in the House, the government had lost its majority and its move was defeated in the Assembly.
Pointing out the fact that though the AAP was not inclined to form the government initially, it later came to power with Congress support, the Centre said the decision of a party could always change in a given scenario as it happened when the AAP formed the government.
