Determining the political majority: India

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

‘Floor tests’ and political stability

‘Floor tests’ to determine the majority

The Times of India, May 11 2016

1998 UP: Kalyan Singh vs Jagadambika Pal: Then UP governor Romesh Bhandari dismissed the Kalyan Singh govt, swore in Jagadambika Pal as CM, who was asked to prove majority by Feb 24. Singh moved HC, got order of reinstatement. Pal challenged HC decision in SC, which on Feb 24 ordered a floor test on Feb 27. Singh secured 225 votes against Pal's 195. SC said HC was right in reinstating Singh as CM.

2005 Jharkhand: Arjun Munda vs Shibu Soren: NDA's Arjun Munda moved SC challenging governor Syed Sibtey Razi's decision to invite Cong's Shibu Soren to form govt, giving him a 20-day window to prove majority.

2016 Uttarakhand

’Floor test’ to determine majority: 2016

The Times of India, May 07 2016

Dhananjay Mahapatra

SC's 3rd experiment with floor test

 During 1995-2015, with coalition politics and horse-trading gaining currency, the Supreme Court has had to deal with arbitrary decisions of governors in inviting persons who prima facie did not command majority in the assembly and order composite floor test to determine who had the trust of the House.

The top court had ordered composite floor test in UP in 1998 to determine who had majority -Kalyan Singh or Jagadambika Pal. It had opted for a similar floor test in Jharkhand in 2005 to determine whether Arjun Munda or Shibu Soren enjoyed majority .

The decision to order a floor test for dismissed Congress CM Harish Rawat in Uttarakhand is the apex court's third experiment with floor test but with a vital difference from the earlier occasions.

The bench of Justices Dipak Misra and S K Singh had no occasion to order a compo site floor test as there was no rival to Rawat claiming majority support in the House. Hence, Rawat faces a simple floor test.

On February 21, 1998, then UP governor Romesh Bhandari in a surprise decision dismissed the Kalyan Singh government and within hours swore in Jagadambika Pal as CM. He was asked to prove his majority by February 24. But Singh moved the high court and got an order of reinstatement. Pal challenged the HC decision in the SC.

The SC on February 24 ordered a “composite fl