Supreme Court to hear Centre-Delhi dispute over 'services' from November 24

NEW DELHI: A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court will commence hearing from November 24 on the contentious issue of who controls - the Centre or the Delhi government - the selection, posting and transfer of senior bureaucrats working with the government of national capital territory of Delhi.
A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud on Wednesday rescheduled the hearing to November 24 as solicitor general Tushar Mehta informed the court that he would be out of the country till November 13 on government of India's work. A bench of Justices Chandrachud, M R Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha had earlier scheduled the hearing for November 9, the day when Justice Chandrachud takes oath as 50th CJI.
This would be the first constitution bench that will be headed by Justice Chandrachud after taking oath as CJI to adjudicate a dispute that had been festering for years. As directed by the 5-J bench earlier, the hearing would be unique as no paper-book files would be permitted to be used by the lawyers, who would have to refer to soft copies on laptops while arguing.
“It will be a completely green bench, no paper,” the five judge bench had said on September 7. On May 6, a 3-J bench headed by then CJI N V Ramana had referred to a 5-J bench for adjudication of the contentious issue – Who, Centre or Delhi government, should exercise legislative and executive control over 'services', including selection and posting of bureaucrats?
The three-judge bench had agreed with the SG's contention that the earlier five-judge bench, while interpreting scope and spread of Article 239AA in its July 4, 2018 judgment, had not dealt with the crucial words of the provision having a bearing on the dispute.