President's rule in UP: Supreme Court wants to examine all documents

The Supreme Court has asked the Union government to produce all material on the basis of which President's rule was re-imposed in Uttar Pradesh.

The court said a firm date for hearing the matter would be fixed only after the records of the case had been completed by the parties involved.

The direction was given by a division bench comprising Chief Justice A M Ahmadi and Justice Sujata Manohar when two special leave petitions -- one by the Union government and the other by the state of Uttar Pradesh -- challenging the Allahabad high court's judgment quashing the re-imposition of President's rule in UP came up for direction.

The court deferred the hearing to enable the parties to file their responses and written statements within two weeks in compliance with an earlier direction.

The UP government counsel told the court that the state government would file an application seeking the transfer to the apex court of certain petitions on the same issue pending before the high court.

Attorney General Ashok Desai, appearing for the Union government, assured the judges that all relevant material would be produced before the court.

The high court had quashed the presidential proclamation dated October 17 by its impugned judgment delivered on December 19.

President's rule was re-imposed in UP after the assembly election in September-October last year because Governor Romesh Bhandari found that no political party was in a position to form a stable government in the state.