There has been speculation that the Congress may opt to go for an early election in Uttarakhand. If the party’s leadership does so now, it will doubtless sweep the poll. Elections are otherwise due in the state next year and the Congress appears to romp home. The impact of Uttarakhand will also be felt in UP poll.

The Uttarakhand episode has seemed to be an ugly throwback to the bad old days when a Congress-ruled Centre brazenly wielded Article 356, to dismiss opposition governments. The Congress has to subsequently pay a heavy price and was reduced to what it is at present. The Modi government’s use of article 356, first in Arunachal Pradesh and now in Uttarakhand has raised serious concern about its commitment to federalism.

President’s rule was imposed in Uttarakhand just two months after Arunachal Pradesh. The decision flew in the face of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the 1994 S R Bommai judgment which stipulated that a government’s majority can only be tested on the floor of the state assembly.

Harish Rawat’s reinstatement as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand following a trial of strength in the assembly under Supreme Court’s supervision has lessons for Indian polity. The Centre’s first decision – to dismiss the state government a day before Rawat was to prove his majority in the house as instructed by the governor—was an injudicious one. This amounted to undermining the offices of the governor as well as the assembly speaker. When the Congress appealed against this in Uttarakhand High Court, the court twice ordered a floor test, which could not take place because the Centre persisted with its legal course. Finally, the case did not stand up in the Supreme Court either.

Rawat’s victory in the floor test was a foregone conclusion after the Supreme court barred nine dissident Congress legislatures from participating in the confidence vote. The votes of 27 remaining loyalists and a six-member bloc have seen him through. The result, which has been confirmed by the Supreme Court, brings an end to the BJP’s political misadventure in exploiting the dissidence within the Congress and attempting to install a government either run or backed by defectors.

Ever since the government led by it hastily imposed President’s rule on the eve of the floor test scheduled in March, it has been unable to convince the judiciary of the justification for doing so. Two legal principles stood in the way of its plan: the bar on defection and the primacy of the floor test determining a government’s majority. Whatever be the right of legislators to disagree with their leadership, it is limited by the rule of defection, as the law stands at present.

In Uttarakhand the situation was complicated by the fact that a clear majority in the state assembly – made of BJP and rebel Congress legislators – had pressed for a division of votes in writing in advance of the Appropriation Bill being taken up. While there is no escaping the fact that Rawat had lost his majority in the house, one lesson from the development is that one piece of impropriety (remaining in office by the use of the Speaker’s disqualification powers) does not justify another piece of possible illegality (the imposition of President’s rule after attempting at toppling a government was stalled).

There is also the serious question of separation of powers. Over time the executive, both the political as well as permanent, has been failing to administer things that fall within its domain. As a result, it is the courts that are deciding on matters such as diesel ban, medical entrance tests or the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

This time even the legislature had to lean on judiciary for managing its own affairs. However, much the political parties bicker among themselves, they must understand that this tendency, visibly in a strong way over the past 20 years, affects them all because they are the constituents of the legislatures and government. Unless they have a broad agreement and are able to lay down settled process of functioning, all of them will be on losing ground. This is sad and ironical, because the India Constitution is based on legislative supremacy.

Presidents of the day invoked Article 356 not less than 90 times before Bommai—and as justice B P Jeevan Reddy said memorably, in most cases with doubtful constitutional validity. Bommai changed all that. (IPA Service)