The Supreme Court on Monday said there was nothing wrong if a no-confidence motion is passed against the Congress-led Nabam Tuki government in Arunachal Pradesh Assembly, when the Deputy Speaker was in-charge of the House proceedings after the Speaker’s removal.
“If the Deputy Speaker assumes office of the Speaker and is the in-charge of the House after the Speaker is removed and a group of MLAs stand up and move no-confidence motion against the government (and) it is passed, then what is wrong? I do not think there is anything wrong,” a five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Justice JS Khehar, said. “Prima facie, you (Bench) may be right,” senior advocate and jurist FS Nariman, appearing for Congress leaders, said.
The Bench, which also comprised Justices Dipak Misra, MB Lokur, PC Ghose and NV Ramana, also raised some procedural issues like whether such business (no confidence motion) has to be there in the list of business of the Assembly.
During the hearing, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for some rebel Congress MLAs, reiterated his stand that the Governor was not barred from summoning the assembly session on his own, without the aid and advice of the Chief Minister and his council of ministers.
“The only precondition is that there has to be some business to be transacted by the House and the Governor is not barred,” he said. Once the House is in session, the Governor has no role to decide as to what business it should transact as it is then the duty of the assembly, the senior lawyer said.
“The general rule is that the constitutional powers should be construed liberally,” he said, adding that the Governor has discretionary powers under special circumstances.
The court, which is hearing a batch of pleas on certain powers of the Governor under the Constitution, would resume hearing on Tuesday.
Earlier, the court had questioned Arunachal Pradesh Governor JP Rajkhowa’s decision to advance the Assembly session to December last year from this January, asking what difference would it have made if the sitting was held as originally scheduled. “What would be the change or difference if the Assembly proceedings would have taken place on pre-scheduled January 14 instead of December 16,” the Bench had then asked.
SC asks Centre to give list of seized docs to Tuki, others
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre to provide the list of documents seized from offices of deposed Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Nabam Tuki and his cabinet colleagues after imposition of President’s Rule in the state, as the Attorney General said most papers, running into lakhs of pages, may be “irrelevant and unrelated”.
“You (Centre) can’t say that the documents seized by you are not related to them (Tuki and his cabinet minister). You give the full list of whatever have been seized and let them decide as to what they want and what they do not want. The question of choice will emerge only after you give the whole list,” a five-judge constitution Bench headed by Justice JS Khehar said.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Centre, referred to a fresh interim plea of Arunachal Pradesh government saying it would be difficult to give all documents to the petitioners (Tuki and other Congress leaders) in pursuance of the court order as there are thousands of files, having lakhs of pages and, moreover, most of them may be irrelevant and unrelated to this case.
“You have to give the whole list. This is the partial list. Let them choose from the list of documents, possibly having nexus with the case or possibly not having nexus with the case. You cannot say right now. You have to give the entire list,” the bench said.
The Bench, also comprising Justices Dipak Misra, M B Lokur, P C Ghosh and N V Ramana, said, “We are not accepting your (state’s) application as it is. You file a fresh one with the full list of the documents ...”