NEW DELHI, February 27: The Supreme Court (SC) today put its seal of approval on the legitimacy of the composite floor test held yesterday in Uttar Pradesh Assembly in which Kalyan Singh won the confidence of the House over rival Jagdambika Pal.The three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice MM Punchhi, and Justices SC Agarwal and KT Thomas, upheld the Allahabad High Court (HC) verdict ordering the reinstallation of the dismissed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government in Uttar Pradesh.
The Bench said, ``We are of the view that the impugned interim order of the High Court directing the Kalyan Singh Ministry to be put back to office should be hereby made absolute subject of course to democratic discipline.''The judges said, with this order, both the writ petition before the HC moved by Kalyan and the Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Apex Court moved by Loktantrik Congress (LC) leader Jagdambika Pal against the interim orders of the HC stood disposed of.
The order came soon after the Court resumedhearing on Pal's petition to consider the report of compliance by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly on the results of the composite floor test as ordered by it earlier. The Court held that in view of conduct of the floor test it did not think it conducive to keep pending the writ petition challenging Governor Romesh Bhandari's action in dismissing the Kalyan Ministry and installing the Pal Government without holding a floor test.
Dealing with allegations by Kapil Sibal, senior counsel for Pal, questioning the conduct of Speaker Kesri Nath Tripathi in not announcing his decision regarding disqualification of 12 break away Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs who supported the Singh Ministry in the floor test, the judges said they were of the view that the Court should not pursue this aspect any further.
The conduct of the Speaker in one respect, namely the issue of his holding up a decision on the disqualification under the anti-defection law, despite concluding hearing on February 25 itself, raisingexpectations, had been severely criticised, the judges observed in their order.
``We, however, reserve any comments on this aspect in view of the wide margin of win by Kalyan. Even if the votes of 12 MLAs who voted for Kalyan Singh are subtracted from the result of the composite floor test he still remains in a majority, rendering Pal to a minority,'' the judges said in their order. The Court said Kalyan had rightly asked for a floor test, but it had been denied. The judges made it clear that in these circumstance all orders connected with the issue would henceforth stand submerged in the final order.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
