New Delhi, October 28
The Supreme Court today took the Centre to task for keeping the Delhi assembly in a suspended animation for over eight months, but at the same time asked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to cite at least a single constitutional or legal provision which mandated the court to intervene in such matters.

“In a democracy, people have the right to have an elected government, instead of being ruled by a Governor,” a 5-member constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu told Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha, who appeared for the Centre.

The Bench made the remark when the ASG informed the court that President Pranab Mukherjee had given his consent to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung’s proposal to invite the BJP to form the government.

AAP’s counsel Prashant Bhushan, however, questioned the logic behind inviting the BJP as neither AAP nor the Congress was ready to support the saffron party which had only 28 MLAs in the 70-member assembly.

Agreeing with AAP’s contention, the Bench nevertheless asked AAP to explain the need for the apex court to step into such controversies. At this, Bhushan cited the 7-member SC Bench verdict in the SR Bommai case and the 9-judge judgment in the Rameswar Prasad case on the dissolution of assemblies.

The SC had ruled that the Centre had no business to dismiss elected state governments without the floor test in the assembly and thereby deny the people of their right to be ruled by their elected representatives. This implied that the Centre had no authority to deprive the people of their right to have their elected governments by keeping the assembly in suspended animation without giving any reason and only citing the Constitutional provision which enabled such a move for a period of one year.

President’s rule was only an exception, under unavoidable circumstances, to the rule of having an elected government, he pleaded. The arguments would resume on October 30.