This refers to the editorial, “Harish Rawat's moment” (May 12). In its landmark Bommai judgement, the Supreme Court observed that Article 356 could be justified only when there was a breakdown of constitutional machinery, and not administrative machinery. The apex court has, thus, opened the proclamation issued under this Article to judicial review. It subsumed to itself the power to strike down the proclamation if it was found to be mala fide or based on wholly irrelevant or extraneous grounds.
While the crisis in Uttarakhand involved dissidence within the ruling Congress and alleged acts of corruption on the part of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, the Centre should have refrained from indulging in political misadventurism. It should not have waited for a judicial imprimatur for a floor test only to dismiss its intervention later as ‘tyranny of the unelected’. It is imperative for the Congress to stop revelling in political theatrics and, instead, resolve the imbroglio through dialogue and by embracing the idea of cooperative federalism.