President Venkataraman deserves to be commended for readily giving his assent to the 59th amendment of the Constitution which authorizes the government not only to extend President’s Rule in Punjab by another two years but also impose emergency in the state, if it deems it necessary. A decision to delay the assent, not to speak of a decision to withhold it and return the bill to Parliament, would have provoked a grave crisis which would have greatly enÂcouraged the terrorists and demoralized the law enforcement agencies in Punjab. Once the bill had been approved by Parliament by an appropriate majority, the issue for the President was not whether the government was justified in providing for emergency in the state but whether the country could afford a confrontation between the head of state and the government in the context of the escalating terrorist violence in Punjab. Surely the answer had to be firmly in the negative. The nation could not afford such a clash. That makes it rather surprising that experienced opposition leaders should have called on the President to withhold assent to the amendment bill. Clearly they allowed their distrust of the government to have the better of their judgement of the national interest. Again, the issue was neither whether or not this distrust was justified, nor whether or not the government needed emergency powers to cope with the situation in Punjab. The issue was whether the President of the republic should have been expected to take this distrust into account in determining his course of action. Surely once again the answer had to be firmly in the negative.
President Venkataraman has, on the face of it, gone by the interpretation of his powers under the Constitution as provided by the attorney-general of India. The press note issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday has said that the 59th amendment bill has been passed by Parliament under Article 368 of the Constitution which obliges the President to give it his assent. This is undoubtedly the case. Article 368 of the Constitution is unambiguous; it does not allow any discretionary powers to the President. But it is notable that President Venkataraman has chosen to depend on the opinion of the attorney-general and not on his own reading of the provision. The President is well versed in the basic law of the land. We cannot possibly say for sure why he has chosen to bring the attorney-general into the picture. But be that as it may, in choosing to go by the opinion of the highest law officer of the land whose independence is guaranteed under the Constitution, President Venkataraman has restored a healthy tradition which his predecessor in Rashtrapati Bhavan had willfully undermined to the great detriment of constitutional order in the country. Giani Zail Singh, it may be recalled, consulted a number of lawyers on his supposed right to dismiss the Prime Minister but not the attorney-general. A great deal of mischief could have been avoided if he had relied on the attorney-general for advice on that crucial matter.