Allahabad high court declares President's rule in UP 'unconstitutional'

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Thursday set aside the fresh imposition of President's rule in Uttar Pradesh holding the proclamation issued in this regard as ''unconstitutional''.

A full bench of the court comprising Justices B M Lal, Brijesh Kumar and Markandey Katju delivered the judgment on various petitions filed by Hari Shankar Jain, R K Verma, Lalji Tandon and others.

The bench, which heard the petitions from December 4 to 9, said Thursday's order will not come into effect till December 26.

Federal Home Minister Indrajit Gupta, however, ruled out any immediate action in the wake of the verdict, thus indicating that the status quo was expected to prevail in the state, at least, for the time being.

Gupta told the Lok Sabha that the government would decide on the future course of action in UP only after studying the judgment and promised to inform the House about it. The minister said the judges had given the government time up to December 26 and ''we cannot be in a hurry to jump to a conclusion.''

In a related development Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A Sangma also deferred till Friday the consideration and passing of the Uttar Pradesh state legislature (delegation of powers) bill, 1996 following objections from Bharatiya Janata Party MPs that the legislation had become infructuous in view of the judgment.

The bill seeks to confer on the President the powers of the legislature of the state of UP to make laws.

Earlier, a two member bench of the Allahabad high court comprising of Justices Syed Haider Abbas Raza and AN Gupta, which had heard these petitions originally, had given a split verdict in the matter on November 19.

The two judges had referred the case to the chief justice requesting him to constitute a full bench for hearing and disposing off the petitions.

A senior home ministry official said the Centre has two options before it -- either to file a special leave petition before the Supreme Court against the high court judgment or examine the possibility of forming a government in the state.

Soon after the judgment, senior home ministry officials sought the advice of their counterparts at the law ministry.

The judgment rocked both Houses of Parliament on the penultimate day of the winter session when BJP MPs sought the immediate resignation of the United Front government on moral grounds.

Describing the UF government's decision to impose President's rule in the state as an erroneous step, agitated BJP deputies asserted that their party's stand had been ''vindicated''.

As soon as the Lok Sabha assembled for the day former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stood up to say that the UF government had been found guilty of murdering democracy. ''We cannot exonerate the ruling front for the act,'' he said.

The BJP leader regretted that to prevent his party -- which won the largest number of seats in September's assembly poll -- from forming a government in UP, the UF constituents had chosen to abandon their long-espoused stand against the ''misuse of Article 356''.

The BJP has demanded that UP Governor Romesh Bhandari be recalled immediately and the Union government resign in view of the unanimous decision of the Allahabad high court.

BJP vice-president K L Sharma called upon the political parties, particularly the Communists and the Janata Dal, to introspect on the use of Article 356 of the Constitution. These parties, he said, had always spoken against invoking of Article 356 to achieve political ends, but in the case of Uttar Pradesh they had endorsed the government's decision.

The BJP's central parliamentary board will meet in Delhi on Friday to assess the situation and discuss the possibility of staking a claim to form the government, Sharma said.

He did not rule out the BJP exploring the possibility of reaching an alliance with another party.

Tara Shankar Sahay, UNI