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Synopsis

Former Supreme Court Judge Rohinton Nariman strongly criticized the Supreme Court's recent ruling that upheld the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which conferred special status on Jammu & Kashmir.

The former Supreme Court Judge stated that under no circumstance can the constitutional breakdown under Article 356 of the Constitution extend beyond a year.

“Article 356 deals with Constitutional breakdown, when the Centre takes over. In no circumstances can it go beyond one year, unless there is a national emergency or the Election Commission should say elections are not possible. So how do you bypass Article 356? You bypass it by this ingenious method of making the State Union Territories, where you have direct Central control and no problem as to time,” Justice Nariman said.

The former Supreme Court Judge was speaking at the 30th Bansari Sheth Endowment Lecture on the theme "The Constitution of India: Checks and Balances"

He said that the Solicitor General has no authority to provide assurances to the Supreme Court regarding the restoration of statehood and bind the successor government.

“The Solicitor General does not have any authority to bind the successor government. We are going to have a successor government from May next year. Second, and more importantly, he (SG) has no authority to bind the legislature. And this is going to be a legislative act,” Nariman said.

He also said that right after the documentaries were released by the BBC against the Prime Minister they were promptly banned and harassed by tax raids.

“In the beginning of the year, you had a BBC documentary, in fact, you had two documentaries, speaking about our present Prime Minister, (Former) Chief Minister of Gujarat. They were promptly banned. The BBC was harassed by having tax raids,” Nariman said. 

While addressing the bill introduced in Parliament that proposes replacing the Chief Justice of India with a minister appointed by the Prime Minister, he remarked,

“…the Chief Justice is substituted by a Minister appointed by the Prime Minister. This is the second most disturbing thing because if you are going to get the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners appointed in this fashion, free and fair elections are going to become a chimaera,” Nariman said.

Furthermore, the former judge also commented on the pending bills before the Governor of Kerala, stating that the Governor had been sitting on the bills for 23 months.

“The third disturbing fact that we found this year is the Governor of Kerala, sitting over bills for periods of up to 23 months. Then the Supreme Court wrapped him on his knuckles, what did he do? There were 8 such bills. One bill was assented to, seven were referred to the President. This again is a very disturbing feature. If there is a wholesale reference to the President, then the legislative activity of State comes to a standstill,” Nariman said.