A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and NV Anjaria stressed that the Supreme Court must intervene to decide what to do in such a situation, while expressing concern that such incidents may happen in other states as well.
“Because in this case, according to them, the chief minister barged into the office… If Article 226 and Article 32 (regarding violation of fundamental rights, see illustration) are also not maintainable, then who will decide? This is not a very happy situation. It is unusual and has not happened before. One day, other CMs may enter other offices…,” the bench said.
The Supreme Court bench said there cannot be a vacuum and some remedial measures must be taken against the situation.
The hearing began with heated exchanges between the judge and the state. A group of lawyers appearing for the state, the chief minister and state officials worked together to seek an adjournment on the ground that the ED’s rebuttal affidavit mentioned new facts that required response. But the bench rejected the plea after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said it was a ploy to delay the hearing as the rebuttal was filed four weeks ago.
Senior advocates Shyam Divan, Kapil Sibal, Siddharth Luthra and Menaka Guruswamy told the bench that this was not a normal rebuttal as it had several new claims that were beyond the scope of the petition.
However, the judge told them they could not decide how the court would proceed. Dewan responded that they were just making requests. When it was pointed out that the ED had also sought an adjournment, the judge said it was not a battle for adjournment and asked Dewan to argue the case. The hearing will resume on March 24.