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Kiran Bedi, a retired police officer and activist,is currently posted as the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. She faced a major setback by the ruling of the Madras High Court , which stated that the Lieutenant Governor cannot interfere in the day to day affairs in Puducherry. The case started when a plea by K. Lakshminarayan, a Congress member of the Puducherry Legislative Assembly, was filed against Ms Kiran Bedi, for running, what is known as a ‘parallel’ government.
Justice R. Mahadevan passed the judgement today ruling against the actions of Kiran Bedi. Puducherry,an Union Territory of India was faced with a tussle between the Lieutenant Governor and the Chief Minister, V. Narayanswamy with regarding the interfere of the former in the day-to-day matters of the State. It was decided by the Hon’ble High Court today that the Administrator cannot interfere into the daily matters in the pretext of supremacy, public interest or other technical reasons.
This judgement quashed two previous communications made by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in January and June 2017, respectively.In these two communications, the power of the Legislative Assembly was undermined and that of the Administrator given a superiority. Article 239A, 239B and 240 of the Indian Constitution, The Government of Union Territories Act 1963, Rules of Business of the Government of Pondicherry, 1963 and the Delegation of Financial Powers Rules, 1978 was examined for the delivery of the judgement. After deliberation and analysis of the above statutes, it was decided that the elected government for the territory of Puducherry had supremacy in terms of governance over the Lieutenant Governor. The powers of the Governor is under the authority of the President and his approval is required.
The judgement stated that in situations where the Council of Ministers is unable to come to s decision in areas of policy decision, then the supervisory power lies with the Administrator and the Administrator can take a decision with the assent of the President. The decision in the said case was reached upon by relying on the precedent of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi v Union of India.
This case laid mentioned the power available to an Union Territory and the discretionary powers of the Administrator, who has to work on the advice of the Council of Ministers.However, the Administrator is empowered with the delegatory authority to the Ministers. The case went on to state that there was a difference in opinion between the Administrator and the elected government. However, the most crucial part of the judgement was that the Administrator could not interfere in the day to day matters of the government and final and binding decision would be of the Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers.The Administrator hence is not empowered with the exclusive authority to run the administration. It was also directed that government officials could not use their personal media for the addressing of the public grievance, which was a point raised against Kiran Bedi.
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