NEW DELHI: Nominated Rajya Sabha member and former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi in his maiden speech in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, supported the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023 even as several women leaders from opposition parties walked out of the Parliament over alleged sexual harassment charges against him. He was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Supreme Court in 2019.

“In my respectful submission, the bill is perfectly valid. The position in my perception is this– the State legislature makes laws for the States, the Parliament makes laws for the union territories. For NCT of Delhi, the legislature makes laws on state subjects except three. By virtue of 239AA(3)(b), Parliament has the power to frame laws beyond these three. That is exactly what the Bill is seeking to do. Therefore there is no question of overreaching (SC order). As a layman it is not subjudice, what is pending before the SC is the validity of the Ordinance and specifically two questions referred to the Constitution Bench, and has nothing to do with what is being discussed in the House,” Gogoi said, explaining why the bill should be passed.

The Lok Sabha passed the bill on Thursday after a five-hour debate.

Gogoi also said that the Centre’s ordinance as it stands today cannot be called an encroachment against the Supreme Court’s decision. Gogoi spoke for the first time in the Rajya Sabha since he became a member in 2020.

“Four MPs, Samajwadi Party leader Jaya Bachchan, Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray faction’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, Nationalist Congress Party’s Vandana Chavan and TMC’s Sushmita Dev walked out of the Rajya Sabha in protest when Gogoi got up to speak.

Back in April 2019, a former junior court officer alleged that she was sexually harassed by Gogoi ; a month later, a three-member in-house committee of Supreme Court judges led by justice SA Bobde unanimously cleared former him of the sexual harassment charges.

The spat between the elected government of Delhi and the lieutenant governor, who reports to the Union home ministry, over control of the bureaucracy began in 2015 and reached the Supreme Court the next year. In 2018, the top court said that land, police and public order were under the Centre and the rest of the departments under the elected Delhi government. But the tussle continued, and in May this year, the top court affirmed its earlier verdict. Eight days later, the Union government brought the 2023 Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) Ordinance that effectively overrode the Supreme Court’s verdict and gave powers over the bureaucracy to the Centre and the LG. Challenges to the ordinance are pending before the top court, which has sent them to a Constitution Bench.