CONSTITUTION - II

State of Rajasthan v. Union of India, AIR 1977 SC 1361

Submitted By: Gaurav Mishra Submitted To: Dr. Shyamala K.

Roll No. 621 Asst. Professor, Constitution

Semester: III ‘A’ NUSRL, Ranchi

Case Analysis
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF STUDY AND RESEARCH IN LAW

RANCHI, JHARKHAND
 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Original Suits 1 to 6 of 1977 and Writ Petitions 67 to 69 of 1977

Decided On: 06.05.1977

State of Rajasthan v. Union of India, AIR 1977 SC 1361

CORAM:
M. Hameedullah Beg, C.J., A.C. Gupta, N.L. Untwalia, P.K. Goswami, P.N. Bhagwati,
S. Murtaza Fazal Ali and Y.V. Chandrachud, JJ.

FACTS IN BRIEF

When the general elections took place for Lok Sabha in 1977, the Congress Party was badly
routed out from center. Janata Party won and formed government at the center. There were state
elections as well in which Congress Party was routed out of power. In States of Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Orissa Congress Party was in power and
had more time to run out of completion of their full term. The Central Home Minister, Charan
Singh wrote a letter to each of Chief Minister of the State suggesting that they should seek
dissolution of state legislature from the Governor and obtain fresh mandate from the electorate.
The State of Rajasthan along with others affected states and three members of Punjab legislative
assembly filed an original suit and petition under Article 131 and 32 of the Constitution against
the Union of India praying the Court to declare this directive of the Center Home Minister as
unconstitutional and illegal.

ISSUES

1. Whether the letter sent to all the Chief Ministers of the state by the Central Home
Minister, Charan Singh, amounted a "threat" of action under Article 356 of the
Constitution to dismiss the Government, to dissolve the Legislative Assembly?
2. Whether the President is empowered under article 356 to proclaim the state of
Emergency, when Governor of the state has not requested for the proclamation?
ARGUMENTS

On behalf of Plaintiff & Petitioners

By Advocate J.P. Goyal, S. K. Sinha, B.B. Singh and A.K. Shrivastava.

1. That the letter of Shri Charan Singh dated 18th April, 1977, discloses the sole ground of
an impending proclamation under Article 356 of the Constitution to be followed by a
dissolution of the Legislative Assembly of the State concerned and that such a
proclamation, resulting necessarily in the dismissal of the Ministries in the six States and
the dissolution of their Legislative Assemblies upon the grounds given in the letter, is
prima facie to outside the purview of Article 356 of the Constitution.
2. That in any case, the condition precedent to the dissolution of the State Legislative
Assemblies is a ratification by both Houses of Parliament of the Presidential action under
Article 356 so that on dissolution, at any rate, of a Legislative Assembly can take place
without ascertaining the wishes of both the Houses of Parliament.
3. That the grounds given being outside the constitutionally authorized purposes and
objectives make the proposed action, on the face of it, mala fide and unconstitutional.
Our attention was also drawn to certain assertions in the plaints and petitions for
advancing the pleas of "malice in fact" and "malice in law".
On the Behalf of Respondent

By Advocate Soli J. Sorabjee

For Suits

1. That on allegations made in the plaints no suit before us would fall within the purview of
Article 131 of the Constitution which is meant for grievances of States, as such, against
the Union Government and not those relating to mere composition of the State
Governments and Legislatures without involving constitutional or other legal rights of
States as such.
For Suits as well as Petitions
2. That the questions which arise for gauging the existence of a "situation", calling for
action under Article 356 are, by their very nature, inherently non-justiciable and they
have also been made non justiciable expressly by Article 356(5) of the Constitution so
that, even if a State could, as such, be said to be legally and property interested in the
dispute between its Government and the Union Government about the desirability or need
for any action by the Union Government under Article 356 of the Constitution, such a
 dispute is outside the sphere of justiciable matters. If the final action or its grounds are
non-justiciable, they could not be indirectly assailed by challenging a process which may
or may not actually produce the apprehended result or action.
3. That the letter of the Union Home Minister and the speech of the Union Law Minister do
not indicate that anything falling outside the wide spectrum of Article 356 of the
Constitution is being or will be taken into account for taking action under Article 356.
Hence, on matters stated there, no cause of action could be said to have arisen.
4. That mere intimation of some facts, fully within the purview of Article 356 of the
Constitution, does not justify a prohibition to act in future when the situation may by
serious enough, on the strength of facts indicated and possibly other facts also, for action
under Article 356 of the Constitution. In other words, the submission It was submitted
that the freedom of constitutionally authorised executive action of the highest executive
organs of the Union should not be impeded by judicial interference except on grounds of
clearest and gravest possible character. Just now, there was nothing beyond bare
possibilities before the Court so that no anticipatory Injunction or Order could be granted.
Judgment
The court observed that the satisfaction under article 356 is subjective one and cannot be tested
by reference to any objective test or by judicially discoverable or manageable standards. Upon
the facts the court concluded that it could not go into the correctness or adequacy of the facts and
circumstances on which the satisfaction of the Central Government is based. However one thing
is certain that if the satisfaction is malafide or is wholly based on the irrelevant grounds, the
Court would have the jurisdiction to examine it because in that case there would be no
satisfaction of the President in regard to the matter that is to be satisfied under Article 356 for the
dissolution of the state legislature. The Supreme Court held, therefore, that the state legislature
could be dissolved without the President’s proclamation having been approved by the
Parliament. Any such proclamation come into immediate effect and remained in force for two
months without Parliament’s approval. The Court also rejected the contention that the
proclamation could not be issued when either or both houses were in session. It was further held
that even if the parliament disapproved the proclamation within period of two months, the
proclamation continued to be valid for the two months and even if the houses did not approve or
disapprove the proclamation, the Government which has been dismissed or the assembly
dissolved did not review.

And under Article 356(1)(a) the President is empowered to assume to himself all or any of the
functions of the Government of the State and all or any of the powers vested in or exercisable by
the Governor. The power to dissolve the Assembly is contained in Article 174(2) of the
Constitution which empowers the Governor to prorogue or dissolve the Legislative Assembly.
This very power by force of Article 356(1) (a) is conferred on the President implicitly and once
this power is conferred by the application of Article 356(1) (a) the President has the undoubted
jurisdiction to dissolve the Legislative Assembly by assuming the same power which the
Governor has under Article 174(2).