Government to rake up issue if Centre sits on bills

After the Winter Session of the Delhi Assembly, the AAP government is set to launch a major offensive against the BJP-led Centre over its long-pending demand of full statehood for the national capital. With the government likely to get all its 10-odd proposed bills passed in the House, it will raise its pitch on the statehood issue once these bills are not cleared by the Centre.

The AAP, which enjoys the support of 67 of the 70 legislators in the Assembly, is tabling these bills without any prior approval from the Centre. Experts are of the view that any bill having financial implications has to have the Centre’s prior approval before being tabled in the Assembly. However, the AAP government has strategically gone ahead with its confrontationist agenda with the BJP-led Centre by tabling the proposed bills without getting any such requisite approval.

Even the city government’s law department had suggested that the proposed bills should be sent to the Centre for prior clearance before they are tabled in the House. On the Code of Criminal Proced-ure (Delhi Amendment) Bill, the law department had clearly opined that since the CrPC 1973 was a law made by the Parli-ament of India, the proposed amendment law, if made by the Legislative Assembly of Delhi would be repugnant to the existing procedures of the CrPC.

The law department said: “In view of the first proviso to Article 239 AA(3)(c), the amendments by the Legislative Assembly shall require assent of the President of India to prevail in the NCT of Delhi. Any legislative proposal required to be reserved for consideration of President and assent of the President is required to be referred to the Central government before introduction in the Legislative Assembly of Delhi.”

Political observers are of the opinion that even after the proposed bills are cleared by the Assembly, they could not be implemented as they are unlikely to get the clearance of the Centre. Asked what purpose would these bills serve for the AAP government, a senior local leader said chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his team want to project that all their decisions related to public good were being rejected by the Centre. “This will help them to prepare a strong ground to raise their pitch for the grant of full statehood for Delhi.”

An AAP insider said that once the Centre rejects these bills, the party will go the whole hog all across the city on the issue of full statehood for Delhi.