Centre vs Delhi govt: Court direction cannot be ‘amrit dhara’ resolving everything, says SC

A bench of Justice T S Thakur and Justice V Gopala Gowda observed they (Centre and Delhi government) should deliberate over issues of governance since a court’s direction cannot become “amrit dhara” (flow of nectar), resolving everything with one order. “We know there are issues concerning governance and administration in Delhi and there are people who are not agreeing upon a lot of things. Newspapers are also full of such items every day. These are the people who need to sit across the table and talk,” said the bench. It added, “If there is deficit in governance, people will pass their judgments at appropriate time. People will ultimately judge them by their performance.”

The bench made these observations as senior advocate Sidharth Luthra claimed there were glaring instances of lack of governance in the capital, resulting in failure on the part of Delhi administration to cater to basic needs such as water, health, education and electricity. Luthra was arguing for a PIL filed by one Tapesh Bagati who wanted directives to the Centre and Delhi government to act in a manner that people do not suffer.

“There is a gross neglect of constitutional duties by both the governments as they fight against each other. Issues relating to health, hygiene, traffic, law and order etc are completely ignored. People are dying from dengue, but they are either embroiled in their scuffle or busy passing the buck for every instance of failure in administration,” argued Luthra. The petition asked for a direction to both the governments to discharge their duties in accordance with the Constitution and law.

The bench told Luthra such generic directives could not be issued since every authority is supposed to act in accordance with the Constitution and law. “If there are issues relating to governance, can a court step in and take over the governance? No, we cannot,” it said. Direction for performing constitutional duties, the bench said, does not require to be issued by a judicial order. “Such directions will be like amrit dhara. It is like saying we will pass an order that everyone should follow the Constitution and the law and everything becomes alright.”

The court told Luthra it was open to look into specific concerns and whenever a plea related to areas of public interest came, it would look into it. “But we cannot look into issues of governance and administration. Tell us the specific problems people have and we will look into them. We cannot entertain generic complaints… don’t present before us political problems.”

It added no judgment by the top court ever said courts should take over governance if there was a deficit otherwise. Luthra then agreed to withdraw the PIL, with a liberty to file a fresh petition drawing the court’s attention to specific areas of concern.