Another blow
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi has lost the first round of his legal battle over the contentious appointment of Justice (retd) R A Mehta as Lokayukta. Justice V M Sahai of the Gujarat high court on Wednesday settled the split verdict of a two-member division bench delivered last October, by upholding governor Kamla Beniwal’s appointment of Justice (retd) Mehta as Lokayukta, without the aid and advice of the Modi ministry. The Modi government has now moved the Supreme Court challenging the judgment. Sadly, thus, there is still no finality about the Lokayukta post that has been lying vacant in the state for almost eight years. The so-called legal and procedural wranglings that led to the non-appointment of Lokayukta have been political in nature. Neither Modi, nor the governor and the leader of Opposition, who along with chief justice of the high court who are part of the consultation process under the Gujarat Lokayukta Act, 1986, can escape blame for the failure to choose one.
However, the reasons why Modi felt compelled to knock on the apex court’s doors within 24 hours of the judgment become apparent from a perusal of Justice Sahai’s verdict. Modi not only lost the legal battle, but the judgement is the most severe indictment of his dispensation so far as Justice Sahai's ‘considered’ observations are a serial rebuke of Modi. According to the judge, the chief minister is guilty of ‘pranks’ that demonstrate ‘deconstruction of our democracy.’ The judge also talks about threat of ‘tyranny’ in the state, Modi sparking ‘a constitutional mini-crisis,’ his ‘spiteful and challenging actions’ arising from a ‘false sense of invincibility’ etc. Whether the instant case called for such indictments or not, Modi would be keen to see them erased from the judgment.
There is another aspect of the judgement that clearly sets a worrying precedent. Justice Sahai avers that in ‘extraordinary or exceptional’ situations, the governor is justified in taking own decisions, without the advice of the Council of Ministers, as required under Article 163 of the Constitution. The judgment appears to have erred in not taking into consideration specific constitutional provisions under Articles 355 and 356 to deal with extraordinary situations wherein the President and Parliament step in to take remedial action. If, on the contrary, governors are allowed act in their discretion without regard to constitutional provisions, elected governments stand to lose their primacy in decision making. It is to be hoped that the apex court would review this position.
