President’s rule among options for Manipur: What is the provision, its history (original) (raw)

After N Biren Singh resigned as Manipur’s Chief Minister on Sunday (February 9), the BJP leadership is exploring its options. If the party fails to find a consensus CM candidate, the state may have to be put under President’s rule — something the BJP wants to avoid, as it is against President’s Rule in principle, highly placed sources told The Indian Express.

The imposition of President’s Rule under Article 356 effectively transfers all the functions of the state government to the Centre and the function of the state legislature to Parliament during the period when it is in force. The only exception to this is the functioning of High Courts, which remains unchanged.

The process begins if the President, on receiving a report from the Governor, is “satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the Government of the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”.

In this situation, the President will issue a ‘Proclamation’, which can remain in force for up to two months. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha must approve it through a resolution before this period expires for it to remain operative further. If approved, the proclamation of President’s Rule can be extended to six months and Parliament can approve further six-month extensions for up to three years.

Certain conditions must be met before a proclamation can be renewed by Parliament beyond a year since it was first issued. Further extensions can only be approved if an Emergency has been declared in the country or that particular state, or if the Election Commission certifies that President’s Rule is necessary due to difficulties in conducting state elections.

President’s Rule through the years in India

Since 1950, when the Constitution first came into force, President’s Rule has been imposed a total of 134 times across 29 states and UTs. It has been imposed most frequently in Manipur and Uttar Pradesh, at 10 times each. However, these are not the states (including UTs) that have spent the most time under central control.

That distinction is held by Jammu & Kashmir, followed by Punjab and Puducherry. Since 1950, Jammu and Kashmir has spent over 12 years (4,668 days) under President’s Rule and Punjab has been under Central control for over 10 years (3,878 days) in the same period. In both states, this is largely owed to recurring spells of militant and separatist activity, and unstable law and order situations.

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The most recent imposition of President’s rule was in Puducherry after the Congress government in 2021 lost power failing a vote of confidence. Puducherry has spent over 7 years (2,739 days) under President’s Rule in its history, in large part because of repeated cases of governments losing support in the Assembly thanks to infighting or defections.

Supreme Court on President’s Rule

The Supreme Court comprehensively examined the power to impose President’s Rule and its effect on Centre-state relations in the case of S R Bommai v Union of India (1994). The matter came to court after several instances of the Centre imposing President’s Rule and dismissing the state government.

A nine-judge Bench unanimously held that the President’s power to issue a proclamation under Article 356 was subject to judicial review and courts could examine the decision to see if it suffered from illegality, malafide, extraneous considerations, abuse of power, or fraud. While the SC acknowledged that the court could not weigh in on the correctness of the President’s subjective decision to impose President’s Rule, it could examine whether the material supplied to the President was relevant to the proclamation made.

The court also created guidelines to protect the independence of state governments.

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Even after a valid proclamation, the court held that only the state legislature would be suspended and that the other limbs of the state government would continue to function unless the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha approved it within two months. Without this approval, the court held, the dismissed government would be revived.

Justice B P Jeevan Reddy was a part of the majority and stated in his opinion, “The fact that under the scheme of our Constitution, greater power is conferred upon the Centre vis-à-vis the states does not mean that states are mere appendages of the Centre”. He advocated further for protecting states’ powers, saying “the courts should not adopt an approach, an interpretation, which has the effect of or tends to have the effect of whittling down the powers reserved to the states”.

In the decades following the SC’s decision in Bommai, the instances of President’s Rule being imposed have decreased.