The Supreme Court of India on March 18, 2020 removed Manipur Minister Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh from the state cabinet and restrained him “from entering the Legislative Assembly till further orders”.
Disqualification petitions were pending before the Speaker since 2017 against Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh.
A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat said it was “constrained” to invoke the court’s extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, “given the extraordinary facts” in the case.
Background
Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh became an MLA in 2017 on a Congress ticket before switching to the BJP to become Minister for Town Planning, Forest and Environment, and Horticulture and Soil Conservation, in the coalition government headed by N Biren Singh.
Article 212 of the Constitution bars courts from inquiring into proceedings of the Legislature. However, the court resorted to this drastic step after noting that Speaker Y Khemchand Singh failed to decide the disqualification petition pending against Singh within the four-week period stipulated by the top court.
About Article 142
Article 142(1) states that “The Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it, and any decree so passed or order so made shall be enforceable throughout the territory of India in such manner as may be prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament and, until provision in that behalf is so made, in such manner as the President may by order prescribe”.
This article has been used for restoring the white marble of the Taj Mahal and for constituting the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee to probe the 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal.The article was also used to provide relief to the thousands of people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy, to cancel allocation of coal blocks granted from 1993 onwards.
