Arunachal Pradesh: Supreme Court Notice To Centre on President’s Rule

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Jan 27, 2016:  The central government has been given two days by the Supreme Court to reply to its notice on President’s Rule in Arunachal Pradesh.

   

Hearing a Congress petition against central rule in the border state, the Supreme Court also gave Governor JP Rajkhowa a 15-minute deadline to furnish his report to the Centre citing a "constitutional breakdown".
   
The court told the governor’s counsel: "You have given this report indicating an emergency situation as to why President’s Rule needs to be imposed. So please produce the report."
   
President Pranab Mukherjee signed off on central rule for Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday after the Centre strongly recommended it and also gave an in-person clarification.
   
The Centre’s assessment was based on the report of the governor, who had said that law and order had severely deteriorated in the state, an assembly session had not been held in six months and that lawmakers had been denied access to the Assembly.
   
The Congress in the state is nearly split in half with 21 of its 47 lawmakers teaming up with 11 BJP members in December to try and remove the Speaker and the Chief Minister.
   
Two-time Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, who first took charge in 2011, has alleged that the BJP wanted to destabilize an elected government and had been organising dissidence for months.
   
The former Chief Minister had rejigged his cabinet many times in the past two years to check rebellion. In December, the rebels went to the Governor, who called an assembly session on December 14.
   
The rebels met at a community hall because the state assembly had been locked up on the Speaker’s orders.
   
The Congress government, which had earlier scheduled a session in January, accused the Governor of acting as "a BJP agent" by calling a session a month earlier to help the rebels, without consulting the Chief Minister.
   
The Congress has described President’s Rule in Andhra Pradesh as "murder of democracy". Besides Arunachal Pradesh, which it had ruled for much of a decade, the party is in power in eight more states.