Article 240 move more dangerous than LG appointment: Bansal

Former Union Minister and ex-Chandigarh MP Pawan Kumar Bansal has sounded one of the sharpest warnings yet on the now-withdrawn proposal to bring Chandigarh under Article 240, calling it a move with “far graver implications than merely appointing a Lieutenant Governor.”

Speaking to The Tribune, the veteran Congress leader and legal luminary said the change would have fundamentally altered Chandigarh’s constitutional architecture.

Bansal explained that the Centre already enjoys full authority under Article 239 to administer any Union Territory through an Administrator of its choosing — even a Governor of a neighbouring state acting independently of that state’s Council of Ministers. “Therefore, projecting this as only a change in designation or as an LG appointment is misleading,” he said.

The real danger, Bansal stressed, lies in the immense power the Union Government would acquire if Chandigarh was placed under Article 240. “Any Act of Parliament or law applicable to Chandigarh could be repealed or amended simply through a regulation, bypassing Parliament altogether,” he said. Currently, only Parliament can legislate for Chandigarh.

Such a shift, he warned, would allow the Centre to rewrite or dilute all key laws governing the city — including the Capital of Punjab (Development and Regulation) Act, 1952, the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, and the Haryana Housing Board Act, 1971 — through executive notifications that carry the force of parliamentary law.

“In effect, Chandigarh could be governed by an executive fiat originating at the level of a Section Officer and ending with a Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry,” Bansal said, adding that Parliament would be “completely excluded” from legislating for the UT. As an illustration, he said long-pending objections to amendments in the Estate Rules through executive order could become meaningless overnight.

Bansal maintained that Chandigarh’s current governance system has worked effectively for over four decades. What the city genuinely needs, he said, is not centralised executive control, but a strengthened Mayor-in-Council system with adequate powers, funds and functionaries transferred to the Municipal Corporation.