Article 356 of the Indian Constitution

The sitting Prime Minister recalled how the Centre had dismissed 90 elected state governments by “misusing” Article 356 of the Constitution.

Article 356 of the Indian Constitution provides for the imposition of “President’s Rule” in a state, which results in the removal of an elected government.
While the Constitution intended for Article 356 to be used only in extreme cases, central governments have repeatedly used it to settle political scores.

Article 356 empowers the President to transfer the executive and legislative powers of any state to the Union.
She or he must be satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the state’s government cannot function in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
The President may determine whether the constitutional machinery has broken down at any time, either upon receipt of a report from the Governor or on his own initiative.

According to Article 356, a state’s President’s Rule can be imposed for six months at a time for a maximum of three years.
Every six months, Parliamentary approval will be required to reinstate President’s Rule.
However, under certain conditions, President’s Rule has been extended for significantly longer periods of time in the past.
For example, due to rising militancy, Punjab was placed under President’s Rule from 1987 to 1992.

Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935 inspired Article 356.
This provided that if a Governor of a province was satisfied that a situation had arisen in which the province’s government could not be carried out in accordance with the GOI Act, he could assume all or any of the powers of the government and discharge those functions in his discretion.
The Governor, on the other hand, could not usurp the powers of the high court.
For the British, this provision allowed for a “controlled democracy” – while giving provincial governments some autonomy, Section 93 allowed the British authorities to exercise ultimate power when necessary.

During Congress’s decades of dominance at the Centre, Article 356 was used against Left-wing governments and regional parties in the states.
Until 1959, Jawaharlal Nehru’s government had used the article six times, including to dislodge the first-ever elected communist government in the world, in Kerala in 1959.
It was used 11 times in the 1960s. Between 1967 and 1969, after Indira came to power in 1966, Article 356 was invoked seven times.
The political climate was more volatile in the 1970s. President’s Rule was imposed 19 times between 1970 and 1974.
In the aftermath of the emergency, the Janata Party government used it to summarily dismiss nine Congress state governments in 1977.
When Indira Gandhi regained power in 1980, her government imposed President’s Rule in nine states as well.
In the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992-93, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao dismissed three governments, including Kalyan Singh’s government in Uttar Pradesh.

The Supreme Court discussed the provisions of Article 356 in detail in its decision in the landmark R. Bommai v. Union of India case.
In its decision in 1994, a nine-judge Bench noted the specific instances when President’s Rule can and cannot be imposed.
The court held that Article 356 can be invoked in situations of the physical breakdown of the government or when there is a ‘hung assembly’.
However, it cannot be used unless the state government is given the opportunity to either prove its majority in the House or there is a violent breakdown of the constitutional machinery.
The arbitrary use of Article 356 has been largely controlled since the judgement.

Source: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/8019/