The Supreme Court on Tuesday had asked the Attorney General to take instruction and apprise it about the feasibility of holding a floor test in Uttarakhand Assembly under its supervision. Senior advocates AM Singhvi and Kapil Sibal, appearing for displaced chief minister Harish Rawat, then urged the court to clarify that it would be a confidence vote for Rawat.
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The bench, comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh had posted the matter for further hearing on May 3 amidst indication that the verdict may be pronounced before the court breaks for summer vacation. Therefore it wanted the AG to consider whether the President’s rule can be kept in abeyance for three days to allow floor test to be monitored by the court. Earlier, the court had also questioned the grounds on the basis of which the President’s Rule was imposed and asked the senior-most law officer of the government to address seven queries raised by it. This is in contrast to its position on April 27 when the government was resisting a floor test in the state assembly. “Is disqualification of MLAs by the Speaker a relevant issue for the purposes of invoking President’s rule under Article 356?” the court asked.
Questioning the Centre over planning to attempt revoking President’s Rule before court’s final verdict, Chief Justice Joseph slammed the Centre for such attempts.
The Centre placed the hill state under President’s Rule in March, triggering a political crisis and accusations of misusing its power.
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“It seems they (Centre) don’t want Uttarakhand to get justice and only prevaricating on the case”, Pradesh Congress Committee President Kishore Upadhyay told reporters here.
