Uttarakhand CM moves court on President’s Rule

Challenging the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand, the Congress on Monday moved the high court in Nainital and accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of toppling its government when the governor had given time to chief minister Harish Rawat to prove his majority on the floor of the Assembly.

The Congress also termed the Centre’s decision as a “brazen display of high-handedness and authoritarianism” but refused to be drawn into judging President Pranab Mukherjee’s action in approving the NDA government’s recommendation, saying it should be left to “his wisdom”. The BJP, however, blamed the Congress for the “constitutional crisis” in the hill state.

Another Congress CM, Himachal Pradesh’s Virbhadra Singh, met party president Sonia Gandhi in the backdrop of President’s Rule being imposed in Uttarakhand.

Describing the imposition of President’s rule in Uttarakhand as “undemocratic” and “unconstitutional”, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said the Centre had ignored the Supreme Court ruling that held the majority should be tested on the floor of the House.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, blaming the Congress for the “constitutional crisis” in the hill state, accused Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal of declaring as passed a “defeated” Appropriations Bill and then failing to certify the “falsehood”. Writing a Facebook post entitled “A State Without a Budget”, Mr Jaitley said: “This leaves the state without any approved financial expenditure with effect from 1st April 2015.”

Former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat, who earlier in the day moved the Uttarakhand high court questioning the Centre’s decision, met governor K.K. Paul along with the MLAs supporting him. Mr Rawat sought permission to prove his majority in the Uttarakhand Assembly a day after President’s Rule was imposed. Mr Rawat contended the circumstances were not suitable for invoking Article 356 of the Constitution, under which his government was removed and the Assembly kept in suspended animation. This matter will be taken up again in court on Tuesday.

Accusing the Centre of “murdering democracy” by imposing President’s Rule in a second Congress-ruled state in two months, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari cited the S.R. Bommai case, saying the Supreme Court had ruled that the only way to test the majority of a government was on the floor of the Assembly.

In his blog, Mr Jaitley wrote that after the Assembly was put under suspended animation and the decision made public, the Speaker decided to disqualify some members, which further compounded the constitutional breakdown. He said the Congress government in the state was reduced to a minority on March 18, when 35 MLAs voted against the Appropriations Bill, and 32 voted in favour. These 35 MLAs comprised 27 from the BJP while the rest were rebel Congress legislators. Stating that there was no better evidence of a breakdown of the Constitution than this, he said: “The Congress government of Uttarakhand was murdering democracy every day from the 18th of March till the 27th of March.” Saying there were “strong facts” to suggest that the Appropriations Bill had actually been defeated, he said as a consequence the government had to resign.

Mr Jaitley said till date neither the chief minister nor the Speaker had forwarded a certified copy of the Appropriations Bill to the governor. “Obviously there is no assent of the governor to the Appropriations Bill.”

While the BJP had last week expressed confidence that it would form the government in the state, but with the case now reaching the high court, the party will wait to see how the matter progresses before taking any decision.

Dismissing the Congress criticism of the Narendra Modi government over the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarkhand as a case of the “devil quoting scripture”, parliamentary affairs minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said the Congress and its supporters had “dismissed 91 non-Congress governments” in the past. “The Congress and its supporters dismissed 91 non-Congress governments, and are now crying foul. It’s like the devil quoting scripture. When you do it, you are a saviour of democracy, but when we do it out of constitutional necessity, we are the murderers of democracy,” Mr Naidu said in a statement.