The judgement attempted to curb blatant misuse of Article 356 of the Constitution of India, which allowed President's rule to be imposed over state governments.

[3] S. R. Bommai, former Chief Minister of Karnataka, is widely remembered as the champion for this landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of India, considered one of the most quoted verdicts in the country's political history.

Thus, the imposition of President's Rule negates the federal character of the Indian political system, where administration is typically shared between the Union and State governments.

If at all they are brought into operation, I hope the President, who is endowed with these powers, will take proper precautions before actually suspending the administration of the provinces.

Provision for suspension of elected governments has been used on more than 90 occasions and in most of the cases, it appeared to be of doubtful constitutional validity, as mentioned by B. P. Jeevan Reddy during one of his interviews in 1998.

[3] Bommai v. Union of India came before the bench of 9 judges (consisting of Kuldip Singh, P. B. Sawant, Katikithala Ramaswamy, S. C. Agarwal, Yogeshwar Dayal, B. P. Jeevan Reddy, S. R. Pandian, A. M. Ahmadi, J. S. Verma) under the following circumstances: Karnataka The Janata Party being the majority party in the Karnataka State Legislature had formed Government under the leadership of S. R. Bommai.

The Governor however sent yet another report to the President on the same day i.e., 20-4-1989, and stated that the Chief Minister had lost the confidence of the majority in the House and repeated his earlier request for action under Article 356(1).

The Central Government under the leadership of Shri P V Narsimharao of the Congress party banned RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal.

All the above said petition contained similar question of law and therefore they were heard conjointly by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

The first and most important question which the Supreme Court had to determine was whether the Presidential Proclamation under Article 356 was justiciable and if so to what extent.

It was contended that Secularism being a basic feature of the Constitution, a State government can be dismissed if it is guilty of nonsecular acts.

Based on the report of the Sarkaria Commission on Centre–state Relations(1988), the Supreme Court in Bommai case (1994) enlisted the situations where the exercise of power under Article 356 could be proper or improper.

Imposition of President's Rule in a state would be proper in the following situations: The imposition of President's Rule in a state would be improper under the following situations: While dealing with the question as to whether the Presidential Proclamation under Article 356 was justiciable all the judges were unanimous in holding that the presidential proclamation was justiciable.

When a prima facie case is made out in the challenge to the Proclamation, the Union of India has to produce the material on the basis of which action was taken.

The second question which was taken into consideration by the court was that whether the President has unfettered powers to issue Proclamation under Article 356(1) of the Constitution of India.

Here it would be appropriate to mention that article 74(2) of the constitution provides that the court cannot inquire as to any, and if so what, advice was tendered by Council of Ministers to the President.

But Article 74(2) as such is no bar to the power of judicial review regarding the material on the basis of which the proclamation is issued.

For, there is no point in the court entertaining the challenge, examining it, calling upon the Union Government to produce the material on the basis of which the requisite satisfaction was formed and yet not give the relief.

Moreover, the Supreme Court firmly held that there was no reason to make a distinction between the Proclamation so approved and legislation enacted by the Parliament.

In this regard the Court held that the Court will have power by an interim injunction, to restrain the holding of fresh elections to the Legislative Assembly pending the final disposal of the challenge to the validity of the proclamation to avoid the fait accompli and the remedy of judicial review being rendered fruitless.

Supreme Court while adjudicating that a State Government cannot follow particular religion discussed at length the concept of Secularism.

Given the above position, it is clear that if any party or organization seeks to fight the elections on the basis of a plank which has the proximate effect of eroding the secular philosophy of the Constitution would certainly be guilty of following an unconstitutional course of action.

The Supreme Court said that Article 356 is an extreme power and is to be used as a last resort in cases where it is manifest that there is an impasse and the constitutional machinery in a State has collapsed.

The principles laid down in this case put a bar on the dismissal of the state government by the centre for political gains.

It was in this case that the court firmly laid down certain provision relating to presidential proclamation issued Under Article 356.

Although the Supreme Court limited President's Rule, people criticized that the Court took such a long time to deliver the verdict and allowed, in the cases of Karnataka and Meghalaya, the illegality to be perpetuated and ultimately deprive the citizens of those states to be governed by their chosen representative.

Still, the judgement delivered by the Supreme Court put a check on arbitrary dismissal of state governments in future and strengthen the federal structure of Indian polity which had hitherto been damaged on several occasions particularly when different political parties were in power at the Centre and the State.