Uttarakhand crisis: Supreme Court keeps Centre plea against order pending

After the Centre informed it that Mr Harish Rawat of the Congress had won the vote of confidence in the Uttarakhand Assembly on May 10, the Supreme Court on Wednesday permitted the Union government to lift President’s rule in the state forthwith.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh, however, kept the Centre’s appeals against the high court verdict quashing President’s Rule pending for adjudication on merits.

The bench, after perusing the report of the principal secretary, legislative and parliamentary affairs, said 33 votes were polled in favour of the motion and 28 against, and there had been no irregularity in carrying out the voting. The bench said, “Be it clarified, nine members of the Legislative Assembly could not vote as they stood disqualified as on that day and even today.”

Earlier, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi said since Mr Rawat had proved his majority, President’s Rule will be revoked on Wednesday itself and he would be restored as chief minister forthwith. He said the order passed on April 22 should be modified.

In its order the bench said the Union of India, which is wedded to the concept of democracy, shall take steps for revocation of the proclamation of President’s Rule. “Keeping in view the prayer made by the learned attorney-general, we vary the order by granting liberty to the Union of India to revoke the proclamation of President’s Rule in the state of Uttarakhand in course of the day. Needless to say, after Presidential Rule is revoked, the 1st respondent can assume the office of the chief minister of Uttarakhand,” the bench said.

“Two aspects we intend to clarify. One, the issue of justifiability of the proclamation of President’s Rule that was made on 27.03.2016, which has been annulled by the impugned order passed by the high court, will remain alive, for the high court has ascribed many a reason to arrive at the conclusion that the said proclamation was not tenable in law. It required to be scrutinised whether within the scope of judicial review such a finding could have been arrived at or, for that matter, whether the opinion arrived at by the President of India to proclaim President’s Rule at the relevant point of time was justified or not.”

It said, “We may hasten to add, we have directed for floor test on concession of the parties and we had varied the order today on a prayer being made by the Union of India. The second aspect that deserves mention is that nine members of the Legislative Assembly have been disqualified. Their disqualification, which has been upheld by the high court, is under assail before this court which has declined to stay the disqualification. The said matter has been adjourned to 12.07.2016. What will be the effect if in the ultimate eventuate case the disqualification is set at naught would be a matter of debate. We say nothing on that score at present. For the purpose of production of the order of revocation, the bench directed the matter to be listed on May 13.