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SC to hear Presidential reference on Monday

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI Aug. 29. Even as the Supreme Court observed today that the three-point Presidential reference on the standoff between the BJP and the Election Commission on the Gujarat elections be heard as expeditiously as possible, it adjourned the hearing to Monday, September 2, as many of the States have not received the notices issued by the court on August 26.

A five-Judge Constitution Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, B.N. Kirpal, V.N. Khare, K.G. Balakrishnan, Ashok Bhan and Arijit Pasayat, adjourning the matter asked the Solicitor-General, Harish Salve, to ensure that notices reached all the State Governments.

(The Bench had on August 26 ordered notices to all the States and the six national political parties — BJP, Congress, CPI, CPI (M), Nationalist Congress Party and BSP — returnable by today and indicated that it would fix a time schedule for the hearing of the Presidential reference.

Earlier, Mr. Salve, appearing for the Central Government, submitted that as many State Governments had already made their appearances before the court, a time-schedule could be drawn up today itself for hearing the reference.

But senior counsel for the Congress, Kapil Sibal, told the court that it would not be proper to draw a time-schedule for the hearing without completing the process of serving the notices in the court's record.

The Bench observed that since the reference involved important questions of law concerning elections — which had become frequent in the country — the parties should sit together and draw up a schedule for the hearing before September 2 and inform the court accordingly.

The Presidential reference relates to interpretation of Article 174, vis-a-vis the powers of the Election Commission under Article 324 to hold elections and whether the Commission could recommend the imposition of President's rule in a State if Article 174 could not be complied with.

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