Article 370 judgment: Reasonable nexus required between object of State emergency and subsequent actions of President, SC holds

A Constitution Bench on Monday held that there should be a reasonable nexus between the actions of the President and the object for which State emergency is declared under Article 356 of the Constitution. The Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was responding to arguments by petitioners that the proclamation of President’s Rule in the State of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 356 on the ground of failure of constitutional machinery on December 19, 2018, followed by the abrogation of Article 370, was constitutionally invalid

A Constitution Bench on Monday held that there should be a reasonable nexus between the actions of the President and the object for which State emergency is declared under Article 356 of the Constitution.

The Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was responding to arguments by petitioners that the proclamation of President’s Rule in the State of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 356 on the ground of failure of constitutional machinery on December 19, 2018, followed by the abrogation of Article 370, was constitutionally invalid.

Article 356 authorised the declaration of President’s Rule in a State on the receipt of a report from the Governor about the failure of the constitutional machinery.

Though the court said it could not sit on appeal over the President’s decision to abrogate 370, calling it a “policy decision” in the realm of the executive, it laid down ground rules to assess whether the actions or exercise of power by the Parliament/President during the emergency period were mala fide or not.

Chief Justice Chandrachud, in his lead opinion, said the “exercise of power by the President under Article 356 must have a reasonable nexus to the object of the Proclamation”.

The court said the onus was on the person challenging the actions of the President during emergency to prima facie establish they were a “mala fide or extraneous exercise of power”.

The Bench laid down that, if a prima facie case was made out, the onus would shift from the person complaining to the Centre to justify that the exercise of power had a reasonable nexus with the object of the proclamation of President’s rule under Article 356.