President is not king, he too is fallible: Uttarakhand HC

Nainital, April 20 (IANS) A bench of the Uttarakhand High Court here on Wednesday said the country's President is not a King who may be infallible.

The strong rebuke over imposition of President's Rule in Uttarakhand came as the bench observed: "Absolute power can spoil anybody's mind and even the President can be wrong and in that case his decisions can be subjected to evaluation."

The Bench said the right to judicial evaluation of orders passed by all courts lies with the courts.

Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat's advocate and Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi contended that imposition of President's Rule is not permissible on the pretext of a state assembly speaker approving a legislation and the Governor terming it 'controversial'.

The court had criticised the central government during the previous hearing over imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand on March 27, a day before the floor test was due to be carried out in the state assembly.

The Uttarakhand political crisis commenced when nine Congress legislators, including former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, whom Rawat replaced, revolted against the chief minister and turned to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for support.

In the 70-member assembly, the Congress has 36 legislators, including the nine rebels. The BJP has 28. The other six members, from smaller parties, are said to support the Congress.