The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea to restrain the high court from delivering its judgment on extent of power to be exercised by the Delhi government.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit declined to allow the contention by senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for the AAP government, that the HC should not have heard the matter as the dispute between a state and Union government was to be exclusively decided by the Supreme Court under Article 131 of the Constitution.

"We perceive a sense of anomaly here. It was you who approached the HC? You are now arguing that the dispute is federal in nature and hence only the SC should decide it under Article 131 but you had in fact knocked on the doors of the HC. If you think only this court should decide then you should have withdrawn your petition from the HC,” the bench told Jaising.

The counsel submitted that the Delhi government would have no objection if the HC decided the preliminary issues, i.e if it had the jurisdiction to decide such disputes, before going into the merit of the petition.