NEW DELHI:
Today, in the High Court of acting Chief Justice a PIL matter was taken up which was related to delay in distribution of school books, bags, stationery, and uniforms to the students of MCD schools due to non constitution of Standing Committee. The court wanted to know how the financial powers of the Commissioner of MCD can be increased. To this, the counsel representing the elected Government of Delhi submitted before the court that the standing committee at MCD is not constituted because of the sole reason that the Lieutenant Governor (LG) Mr. Vinay Saxena unilaterally and illegally chose to nominate and appoint 10 aldermen to the municipal corporation without the aid and advice of the elected government.
It has been a practice for the last 30 years that the elected Government of Delhi recommends the names of the people who will be the aldermen in the corporation and the LG is always bound by the aid and advice of the elected government. That effectively means that it is the elected government which chooses and appoints people to be aldermen in the corporation. However, this time the LG appointed unilaterally, and that matter was challenged before the supreme court and the judgement is awaited.
Secondly, because of this there is no standing committee in the corporation and a lot of works of the corporation are stalled because in works which are beyond ₹5 crores. The standing committee’s approval is needed before those works can be implemented by the Commissioner of the Corporation. The counsel for the elected government pleaded before the court that this problem was well recognised by the mayor and the corporation. And in order to find the solution, a resolution has been adopted and passed in the corporation that all the powers of the standing committee may be given to the corporation so that no work is stalled, and this will also ensure that there is supervision of the elected house of the MCD over works which are beyond ₹5 crores of value.
The counsel also pleaded before the court that this needs to be implemented by the Commissioner. In spite of the fact that this resolution was passed in January 2023, no proposal beyond ₹5 crores of value has been sent by the Commissioner to the Corporation. The counsel for the government also pleaded before the court to give Corporation 1 week and direct the Commissioner to send this proposal to the corporation. We will get it passed by the corporation and all the stalled works can be completed and the contract related to books, stationery, uniform and school bags can be executed.
The counsel for the government also pleaded before the court that this is already a precedence in the corporation because even for passing the budget of the corporation for the year 2023-24 and 2024-25, it has to be adopted and recommended by the standing Committee. However, because the standing Committee was not constituted, it was directly sent by the Commissioner to the Corporation and the budget was passed. In the similar manner, all the proposals beyond ₹5 crores of value can be placed before the corporation and the corporation can not pass them without the standing committee.
If the Commissioner can execute the contract beyond ₹5 crores of value if the corporation’s nod is not taken, then there will be unbridled power of the Commissioner and the elected representatives, who have been elected by the people of Delhi, will have no control or say in the functioning of the corporation. The Commissioner will unilaterally choose any work which he finds appropriate to be executed and any work which is recommended by the corporation or needed by the elected representatives of Delhi may not be executed by the Commissioner because the power will be solely in the hands of the municipal corporation.
