Uttarakhand crisis unabated

he Uttarakhand High Court seemed to be in a hurry to restore chief ministership to Harish Rawat. Barely had he taken oath yet again, and took a slew of populist decisions with an eye on a fresh poll, the Supreme Court stayed the High Court order, and restored President’s rule in the State. If the Centre had shown undue haste in proclaiming President’s rule, the Uttarakhand High Court had shown undue haste in reversing it. The plea of the Centre that the division bench had not even cared to supply the detailed order while dictating the operative part reversing central rule found favour with the apex court. The apex court was not impressed that the High Court had taken such an important decision of overturning President’s rule without weighing all relevant aspects. The rebuke was welldeserved. Though the Centre did not escape unscathed either, with the apex court insisting on an undertaking that President’s rule would not be revoked till the next hearing of the matter which is listed for Wednesday, April 27. This might have become necessary in view of the earlier case of Arunachal Pradesh when the Centre had seen to it that a new government headed by the leader of the Congress rebels was installed even while the matter of the legality of President’s rule was yet to be disposed of. Significantly, the apex court agreed to make the Speaker of the Uttarakhand Assembly a party to the case, even though there was no precedent of the presiding officers of legislatures, central and states, being called to explain their position. In the present case, a key argument of the Centre in favour of President’s rule is that the Speaker wrongly declared the Appropriation Bill passed, though the majority of members present were opposed to the Rawat Government. The Centre contended that 27 BJP MLAs and nine Congress rebels constituted majority in the House and that the Speaker played fraud on the House when instead of allowing a division on the money bill, he hurriedly declared it passed and adjourned the House. There is no denying that both sides have made mistakes in order to game the system. Having lost his majority, the Congress leadership in the State resorted to untruths and constitutional chicanery to hoodwink the people after its own MLAs had revolted against the Chief Minister. The Centre, in its hurry to get rid of yet another Congress government, bypassed norms and well-laid out directions in the Supreme Court order in the Bommai case. Heavens would not have fallen had the Assembly been allowed to test the majority of the Rawat Government a couple of days later, though there was merit in the argument that in the meantime the Speaker would have sought to rig majority for the beleaguered CM by suspending the nine rebels.

As for the High Court order, it is shocking in the extreme that it should so openly display its bias by remarking dismissively about the conduct of the Congress rebels, with the chief justice who headed the two-member bench justifying their suspension in these ill-considered words, “They sinned and needed to be punished.” This is not how a High Court judge, a chief justice at that, should be conducting judicial proceedings. That the suspension had been challenged by the rebels and the matter was listed to be heard by a judge of the same court had created a piquant situation. For, the High Court judge cannot be expected to ignore the remarks of his own Chief Justice. In short, unless those unworthy comments are deleted from the court record, it will be difficult for the nine rebels to expect a fair hearing. Meanwhile, the apex court might have to take a view on the eleven decisions taken by the Rawat Cabinet soon after he was sworn in following the High Court order. The validity of these decisions, especially when these are aimed at wooing sectional interests with an eye on the next poll, is in doubt. In short, the crisis in Uttarakhand is unlikely to lead to the restoration of stability in the State regardless of which way the court verdict goes. T