The hearing in Uttarakhand High Court over Appropriation Ordinance and validity of imposition of the President’s Rule on Uttarakhand under Article 356 of the Constitution was adjourned till Tuesday after the double bench of Nainital High Court comprising Chief Justice K M Joseph and Justice V K Bisht on Monday heard both the parties-the Centre and the ousted Chief Minister Harish Rawat.
While Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi represented the Centre, senior advocates and Congress leaders Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kapil Sibal along with some others pleaded for the former Chief Minister Harish Rawat and the Speaker.
The hearing was inconclusive with the court fixing Tuesday as the next date of hearing.
The politicians and the common people remaining focused on the goings- on in the High Court and waiting for the verdict with bated breath, they would have to wait for another day. “Nobody knows how long the hearing would drag on in the court. We all are eagerly waiting for the court to clear the mists,” said Ahsok Negi, a resident of Doiwala, Dehradun.
Arguments and counter-arguments followed as the court took up the matter on Monday. Meanwhile, the Speaker submitted a five-page reply in the High Court over the petition regarding the termination of Assembly membership of nine rebel Congress MlAs.
Rohatgi argued that the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand was legal, saying that the Appropriation Ordinance had not been passed in the Vidhan Sabha with 35 MlAs standing up in unison to oppose the bill and later parading their strength before the Governor on March 18.
Things had warranted the Centre to impose the President’s Rule to keep things going for the State, he argued.
Rohatgi said that a minority government could not have passed the Appropriation Bill. He also cited the Speaker’s partisan attitude and the sting operation, showing Harish Rawat purportedly vowing to generously rehabilitate the dissident MlAs if they chose to return to the Congress folds, to buttress his point.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi , on his part, refuted the AG’s arguments, saying that the Appropriation Bill had been duly passed and the Speaker’s action was justified by the laws. He dubbed the ordinance issued by the Centre as ‘unconstitutional’ while saying that the Central Rule was unwarranted with the Governor fixing the date of floor test the following day.
Notably, in a dramatic move, the Centre had dismissed the Congress government and imposed President's Rule on March 27, citing breakdown of the governance. The crisis in the hill State had erupted on March 18 when nine Congress MlAs had raised the flag of revolt against Rawat's government, resulting in flip-flop in the passage of the Appropriation Bill, an issue that is dogging the court hearings as the bone of contention.