NEW DELHI, Oct 22: It was President K R Narayanan's assertive move in returning the Cabinet recommendation which effectively led to the Gujral government's retreating from its plan to impose Central rule in Uttar Pradesh. Swamped by the opinion of a host of legal experts including the Attorney General who universally dubbed the Central rule decision ``grossly unconstitutional,'' Gujral and his Cabinet had little choice but to withdraw their recommendation to the President.Narayanan's move was path-breaking as no President in the past had tossed the advice to clamp Article 356 on the States back to the Cabinet, though there have been instances when Rashtrapati Bhavan had returned Bills to the Cabinet for reconsideration. One such controversial episode had resulted from Zail Singh's sending back the Postal Bill to the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet.The closest a President came to doing a Narayanan was in 1977 when acting President B D Jatti refused to okay the Morarji Desai government's recommendation to dismiss nine Congress-ruled State governments. Jatti had relented only when Desai threatened to resign. Interestingly, the erstwhile avatar of the BJP, the Jana Sangh, was part of the Janata Party government then.Legal luminaries across the board felt that the move for President's rule was ``thoroughly unconstitutional and uncalled for.'' The President, they said, had done the right thing in returning the advice of the Cabinet for reconsideration.``President's rule is constitutionally unacceptable because Kalyan Singh has proved his majority on the floor of the Assembly,'' said Kapil Sibal. Concurring with him, Arun Jaitley said the move would set a bad precedent as Opposition parties could use violence to show that the constitutional machinery had broken down.The experts however differed on the question whether the President was bound to accept the advice after a reconsideration by the Cabinet. While one view was that the President under Article 74 of the Constitution had ``virtually no choice'' but to accept it once it came back to him the second time, the other was that since the advice was ``totally unconstitutional'' he could reject it.``If the President is asked to do something contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, he should reject it,'' said Ram Jethmalani. The President was duty-bound to accept the advice after a reconsideration only in routine matters and not cases like this, he argued. But this question became irrelevant in the evening when the Cabinet restored the status quo in Uttar Pradesh.The experts felt that the right thing for the Prime Minister to do in the circumstances was to first make available all information to the President and convince him about the need to accept the advice before sending him a formal recommendation.``It was unfortunate to present the President with a fait accompli by sending a formal recommendation straightaway. He very rightly sent the recommendation back to the Cabinet,'' said Rajeev Dhawan, a constitutional expert.``It was established beyond all doubt that 222 MLAs who had remained behind after the violence had supported Kalyan Singh. To have gone ahead with his dismissal would have been totally unconstitutional,'' said one expert who wished to remain anonymous.``Presidents in the past have not been as assertive as Narayanan. His action now has come as a breath of fresh air,'' he said.
