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Centre gets show-cause notice on LS dissolution

Sunil Jha in New Delhi

The Delhi high court today issued show-cause notices to the central government, Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee and the secretary-general of the Lok Sabha on a public-interest petition challenging the dissolution of the twelfth Lok Sabha by President K R Narayanan.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Devinder Gupta and Justice K S Gupta directed Sorabjee to attend the next hearing on May 21.

The petition, filed by the Association for Social Health Action, alleged that the Cabinet's recommendation to dissolve the House was influenced by the President.

The notices were issued after the petitioner provided an affidavit placing the source of information and clarified which of the averments made in the petition were based on personal knowledge and which on other sources of information.

The petition pleaded that the April 26 dissolution of the House by the secretary-general be declared null and void.

It said the President, by asking the Council of Ministers to send him a recommendation to dissolve the Lok Sabha, had departed from constitutional provisions.

The petition said the Rashtrapati Bhavan communique of April 26 observed "tersely" that the President had informed the prime minister that in his perception dissolution of the house had become necessary because of lack of majority of the ruling alliance and cohesion in the rank of the Opposition.

Narayanan's perception was contrary to Article 74 of the Constitution as the President and governors cannot exercise their constitutional powers for personal satisfaction but for the satisfaction of the Council of Ministers, senior counsel Ajit Kumar Sinha argued.

"Under the Constitution, the power to dissolve the House does not stem from any prerogative but from the constitutional provisions saddled with imperative [word] 'shall' in Article 74, as amended in 1976," he said.

Sinha submitted that the prime minister in a recent interview to a newsmagazine had categorically stated that the President had advised him to call a meeting of the Cabinet and recommend dissolution of the House.

"In the constitutional provisions, the President can only ask the Cabinet to reconsider any of the latter's decisions, but he cannot eventually refuse to oblige the prime minister," Sinha said.

Regarding the court's power to issue a writ of mandamus on such a petition, he argued that the Supreme Court had clearly laid down that if an authority in whom a discretion is vested does not act independently and passes an order on the instructions of another authority, the court can intervene and quash the order.

UNI

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