The single-judge bench of Justice U.C. Gyani of the Uttarakhand High Court set the cat among the pigeons when on Tuesday it ordered Congress leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat to take a confidence vote on March 31 although the state was brought under President’s Rule on March 27, just a day before Governor K.K. Paul had asked Mr Rawat to establish his majority in the Assembly on March 28.
Justice Gyani, thus, upheld the basic principle underlying the Governor’s decision and questioned the proclamation of Article 356 by the President, following a recommendation by the Union Cabinet, only a day before the Governor-ordered confidence vote was to take place. This is an extraordinary development which sets off a debate on whether a presidential proclamation of this nature, which is in effect the will of the ruling party, is justiciable or not. Justice Gyani had termed the imposition of Central Rule a day before the date on which the governor asked for a floor test “a colourable exercise of power”.
A panicked Union government despatched attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi to urge a division bench of the Uttarakhand High Court to stay the order of the single-judge bench, arguing that “courts cannot interfere with the presidential proclamation”.
Seeing perhaps that a crucial issue relating to the functioning of the constitutional scheme may be involved, a division bench of Chief Justice K.M. Joseph and V.K. Bisht has stayed Justice Gyani’s directive until arguments are heard from both sides — the Centre and Mr Rawat, represented by the lawyer Abhishek “Manu” Singhvi. Thus, the scheduled trial of strength in the Assembly on March 31 has been averted. It is well to note that the division bench did not quash Justice Gyani’s order.
It is not unlikely that the party which is left aggrieved by the eventual direction of the division bench of the Uttarakhand High Court will knock on the doors of the Supreme Court. We seem to have in prospect a first class discourse on the issue of the Centre imposing President’s Rule at will. This is salutary in the democratic perspective, as generally it is state governments run by parties other than the one controlling the Centre that are hammered with the imposition of President’s Rule. The less than transparent manner of the dismissal of the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh is a fresh example. Our Constitution-makers did provide for President’s Rule but hoped that the provision will be a “dead letter” in a federal polity. For now at least, the Modi government’s unrestrained enthusiasm to dismiss non-BJP governments may be held in check.
