NEW DELHI: Days after the Supreme Court sorted out the Centre-Delhi government turf war, the Congress raised a similar query before the court relating to Puducherry by challenging the Centre’s power to nominate three MLAs to the assembly without consulting the chief minister.

Appearing for Congress MLA and former minister K Lakshminarayanan , senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid on Thursday said it would be anathema to cooperative federalism if despite creation of an assembly in the Union Territory of Puducherry, the central government unilaterally nominated three BJP members as MLAs without consulting the elected government.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said the national capital enjoyed a unique position but the same was not true of Puducherry. It said prima facie, it appeared that the Union government had the power to nominate the three MLAs.

However, it decided to hear the constitutional question involved while directing the assembly secretary to permit the three MLAs to attend House proceedings.

It asked the AG to keep ready files relating to procedure earlier adopted for nominating the MLAs and posted the matter for detailed hearing on August 1.

