New Delhi, Aug 4 The Supreme Court on Friday nominated former Delhi High Court judge, Justice Jayant Nath, as an ad hoc chairman of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC), pending further orders.
"We nominate Mr Justice Jayant Nath, former Judge of the High Court of Delhi to discharge the duties of the office of Chairperson of DERC," said a bench headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra.
It added that the Lt Governor and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in consultation with Justice Nath, will notify the honorarium payable to him.
The bench had earlier indicated that the top court will temporarily appoint someone on a pro tem basis to felicitate functioning of the electricity tariff regulatory body after it was told that the Delhi L-G and CM failed to reach consensus on who should head the DERC.
During an earlier hearing, the Supreme Court expressed its concern over the "headless" institution and said that "it is sad that no one cares about the institution". It had also asked the Lt Governor and the Chief Minister to "sit together" and "rise above political bickering" to mutually decide on the name.
"Why don’t two constitutional functionaries (Delhi LG and CM) sit down and make it work? They have to rise above political bickering. We do not want to step into this, we want both sides to arrive at a solution," the court had said.
The Supreme Court on July 4 had directed the Lt Governor to not administer oath of office to the newly-appointed DERC Chairman, Justice Umesh Kumar (retired) and directed that the administering of oath to the former judge of Allahabad High Court will stand deferred till its further orders.
The top court was hearing the petition moved by the AAP-led Delhi government's plea claiming that appointment of the DERC Chairman was "illegal and unconstitutional".
It claimed that the appointment was made by 'overlooking' the aid and advice of the elected government.
On June 22, L-G V.K. Saxena had appointed Justice Umesh Kumar as the DERC Chairman, ignoring the Delhi's government's recommendation to appoint retired MP High Court Judge, Justice Rajeev Kumar Shrivastava. The Delhi government has challenged Section 45-A of the GNCTD Act introduced through the recent ordinance giving overriding powers to the Lieutenant Governor over the elected government in the matter of appointments.
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