SC defers hearing on plea of MCD mayor on functioning of standing committees

New Delhi, Aug 5 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday deferred the hearing on a plea by Delhi mayor Shelly Oberoi seeking permission for the civic body to exercise the functions of its standing committee.

The hearing on Oberoi’s fresh petition was adjourned in the wake of the judgement pronounced earlier in the day on a separate plea of the Delhi government against the power of the lieutenant governor (LG) to nominate aldermen to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

The top court ruled that the municipal law “expressly enables” the lieutenant governor to nominate aldermen to the MCD and he is not bound by the advice of the council of ministers in the matter.

“A judgment was delivered today by Justice P Narasimha-led bench. We need time to study it as it will have an effect,” senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the mayor, told a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

We will list it after two weeks then, the CJI said.

“Nothing much survives (in the present petition). They (Mayor) can withdraw it,” senior advocate Sanjay Jain, appearing for the office of the LG, said.

On July 29, the CJI had said that the apex court may pronounce the judgement on August 5 on the petition of the Delhi government challenging the lieutenant governor’s power to nominate aldermen to the MCD.

The mayor, in her fresh plea, said the standing committee of the civic body performs various key functions and any decision involving an expenditure of more than Rs 5 crore, including the mid-day meal scheme for school children, has to be endorsed by it.

The BJP, which is in the opposition in the MCD, has often accused the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of not constituting the standing committee as it feared it will not be able to secure a majority in the panel.

Oberoi said in her plea that the standing committee was not functioning currently. The panel consists of 18 members, out of whom six are directly elected by the civic body. The remaining 12 members are elected by an electoral college which includes 10 members or the aldermen who are nominated by the LG.

The MCD has 250 elected and 10 nominated members.

In December 2022, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) defeated the BJP in the civic elections, winning 134 wards and ending the saffron party’s 15-year run at the helm of the MCD. The BJP won 104 seats and the Congress finished a distant third with nine.