New Delhi: Supreme Court will hear today the Centre's petition challenging Nainital High Court order quashing imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand. Hearing the Centre's plea on April 27, the court had directed to continue the President's rule for the while.
Posting the matter for further hearing today, it had extended the stay on High Court's order quashing the central rule in the hilly state. The two-judge division bench had also asked several questions to the Centre asking it to justify imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand.
The political crisis in Uttarakhand started on March 18 when 9 Congress MLAs, along with 27 BJP legislators, met Governor KK Paul at the Raj Bhavan in Dehradun, and sought the dismissal of the Harish Rawat government.
Rawat had, however, maintained that he enjoyed a majority in the 71-seat Uttarakhand Assembly. Following this, Paul gave Rawat a deadline of March 28 to prove his majority in Assembly but the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre imposed President’s Rule in the state saying the Assembly failed to pass the Budget.
The Centre also argued that the step was taken after receiving a report from the Governor that the ruling Congress was involved in horse-trading to save its government.
Meanwhile, chief minister Harish Rawat, who had so far been insisting the sting CD of him was fake, had last week accepted his presence in the video. He, however, said meeting a journalist was not a crime.
"Is meeting a journalist a crime? If one of the MLAs who had not been technically disqualified by that time talked to me ... how does it matter? Do we block any channels in politics?" Rawat said.
Claiming innocence, Rawat said if the CD contained evidence of him having made an offer in cash or kind in exchange for the support of disgruntled MLAs he was ready to be hanged in public.
The sting CD made by the editor-in-chief of a private news channel and circulated by the nine Congress rebels, who created a political crisis in the state by siding with opposition BJP in the state assembly, purportedly shows Rawat negotiating a money deal with the journalist to buy the support of MLAs who had revolted against him.
