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Saturday, Mar 12, 2005

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Every court order should be complied with: Bhardwaj

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 11. The Manmohan Singh Government has made it known that it is not courting any confrontation with the judiciary, clearly distancing itself from the developments in the Jharkhand Assembly. The Assembly today failed to comply with the Supreme Court directive of conducting the trust vote of the Shibu Soren Government.

After a meeting of senior Cabinet Ministers at the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh's residence this morning, the Union Law Minister, H.R. Bhardwaj, went before television cameras that "as Law Minister it was his duty to see to it that every order of the Supreme Court was complied with." Mr. Bhardwaj refused to say whether the Government would take up the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee's suggestion for a Presidential reference on separation of powers of the legislature and the judiciary in the context of the Supreme Court directive on the Jharkhand issue.

Echoing the Government line of distancing itself from the Ranchi developments, the United Progressive Alliance today asserted in the Lok Sabha that there was no question of Central intervention in Jharkhand and that the Government had nothing to do with the developments there.

Responding to an impromptu debate, the Leader of the Lok Sabha and Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee said the Centre did not intend to intervene in the Assembly proceedings. "The Constitution clearly earmarks the jurisdiction of the State Legislature and Parliament ... the expression of confidence or no-confidence is the exclusive jurisdiction of members of the State Assembly... We want the decision should be taken on the floor of the Jharkhand Assembly."

Mr. Mukherjee was categorical that neither the Congress party nor the Union Government had anything to do with developments in the State and even the Prime Minister and the Home Minister had stated that what had happened was a matter concerning the State.

The UPA Government came under attack in the House, with the Opposition led by Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the Bharatiya Janata Party charging that the Centre was behind the developments in the Jharkhand Assembly aimed at keeping a minority Government in place. The Samajwadi Party said the exercise was aimed at imposing Central rule in Jharkhand and said that even though they opposed the National Democratic Alliance, the coalition that had the numbers should have been invited to form the government.

The Left parties too expressed concern over the developments, with the Communist Party of India leader, Gurudas Dasgupta, stating that in his opinion, the Chief Minister, Mr. Shibu Soren, should not have been allowed to form the Government. Mr. Dasgupta expressed concern over "tinkering with democracy." The CPI(M) MP, Rupchand Pal, accused the NDA of "kidnapping" independent MLAs of Jharkhand and shifting them to Rajasthan.

Earlier, the Lok Sabha witnessed a brief adjournment after the BJP insisted on raising the Jharkhand Assembly developments, while the ruling coalition benches joined issue.

The Speaker said the Assembly functioning could not be discussed in the House, but later allowed it to be raised mentioning that this would not be treated as a precedent.

The Congress said that in the constitutional scheme of things, each wing of the Government, executive, legislature and judiciary, derived authorities from the Constitution. "It was presumed that all these three wings functioned within the framework of the Constitution and avoided transgression into the jurisdiction of others," the party spokesperson, Anand Sharma, said.

Over the years, all these wings had functioned smoothly and whenever there had been any deviation or departure, the system had corrected such aberration or deviations amicably through practice, convention and by collective wisdom.

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