President begins deliberations to decide on next step

President K R Narayanan is understood to be seeking the opinion of constitutional experts about the action he should take following the defeat of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in the Lok Sabha yesterday.

No details were available, however, of the nature of consultations held by the President or the experts he had spoken to.

Other constitutional experts said the President is under no compulsion to invite the second largest party or group of parties to form the next government.

In the present position, where the government has been defeated by the narrowest margin possible, the experts said he would be expected to call the group that he thinks can provide a stable government, and not rely on the arithmetic alone.

But senior Supreme Court lawyer Kapil Sibal said the President would call the second largest party, the Congress, to form the government after seeking an assurance that it can provide stability.

Asked if Vajpayee could be invited again to form the government, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi said there is no constitutional bar on such action, but the President would prefer to ask other groups and come back to Vajpayee only if everyone else fails.

But other experts disagreed and said there would be no option but to order a mid-term election if all other parties/groups fail to provide a government.

Senior counsel P P Rao suggested that the President could appeal to all parties in the House to form an all-party government till the election is held.

But all the experts felt passing the Union Budget will not cause any problem, saying that could be done by "common consensus".

If for some reason the Budget is not passed within 75 days of its introduction in the Lok Sabha on February 27, the government will have no option but to revert to the position prevailing before the Budget.

Some economists believe this will have serious repercussions on tax proposals, particularly those relating to customs and excise duties which have already become effective from February 27.

But constitutional experts suggested that ordinances could be passed later for covering these taxes with retrospective effect.

Singhvi said the President is not bound to act on the prime minister's advice if the latter advises him to dissolve the Lok Sabha and call for a fresh election.

He agreed that the Supreme Court had, in the Shamsher Singh case of 1974, made it clear that whenever the word 'President' occurs in the Constitution, it means 'Council of Ministers' by whose advice the head of state is bound. But at the same time, there are well-known exceptions to this rule, among them being the advice of an outgoing prime minister to dissolve the Lok Sabha.

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Compiled from national media