Article 356 Was Used 75 Times Between 1951 and 1987, and the Nine-Judge Bommai Judgment of 11 March 1994 Then Made Every Proclamation of President's Rule Open to Judicial Review and Moved the Count of a Majority to the Floor of the House

The Sarkaria Commission’s 1988 report to the Government of India tabulates 75 proclamations of President’s Rule in states under Article 356. Punjab saw the first on 20 June 1951 and the last in the table, also in Punjab, on 11 May 1987. On 11 March 1994 a bench of nine Supreme Court judges decided S. R. Bommai v. Union of India. It held that a court can examine the material behind a proclamation, that a state Assembly cannot be dissolved until both Houses of Parliament have approved the proclamation, and that a ministry’s majority is to be counted on the floor of the House.

Article 356’s text, its two-month and six-month clocks and the three-year limit are set out in our guide to the emergency provisions, which also gives the outline of the Bommai holding. This piece goes into the cases on either side of that judgment, the Court’s own conclusions, how the floor test has worked since, and what the Sarkaria Commission asked Parliament to change.

What the Court said in 1977

Before 1994 the leading ruling was State of Rajasthan v. Union of India, decided on 6 May 1977 by seven judges. After the Lok Sabha elections of March 1977 changed the party in power at the Centre, the Union Home Minister wrote on 18 April 1977 to the Chief Ministers of nine states, asking them to advise their Governors to dissolve their Assemblies and seek fresh mandates. Six of the states sued. It dismissed their suits and a connected petition.

Chief Justice M. Hameedullah Beg’s reasoning is recorded in the headnote. Article 356(5), added by the 38th Amendment, said the President’s satisfaction was “final and conclusive” and could not be questioned in any court, so courts could test only the grounds the Union admitted. Proclamations followed on 30 April 1977 for nine states, the Sarkaria table shows: Punjab, Rajasthan, Orissa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar.

A second batch of nine came on 17 February 1980, after that year’s Lok Sabha elections. Neither batch, the Sarkaria report says, was based on a report from the state governments concerned.

A later amendment, the 44th, deleted clause (5). In Bommai, Justice B. P. Jeevan Reddy wrote that the deletion “removes the cloud” on whether the action can be reviewed. Justice A. M. Ahmadi wrote that the 1977 decision, to the extent it was inconsistent with his reasoning, did not lay down the law correctly.

Karnataka, April 1989

The case that gave the judgment its name began in Karnataka. On 18 April 1989 the Governor received 19 letters from legislators withdrawing support from the ministry led by S. R. Bommai. He did not ask the Chief Minister for his view, the judgment records. On 19 April he reported to the President that the ministry no longer commanded a majority and recommended action under Article 356.

On 20 April seven of the 19 legislators wrote to say their signatures had been obtained by misrepresentation, and the Chief Minister offered to prove his majority on the floor of the House. That day the state Cabinet decided to convene the Assembly on 27 April. On 21 April 1989 the President issued the proclamation, and Parliament later approved it.

Karnataka’s High Court upheld it, holding among other things that a floor test was neither compulsory nor a pre-requisite to reporting to the President. Justice P. B. Sawant, writing for himself and Justice Kuldip Singh, disagreed. He wrote that where a ministry’s support is said to have been withdrawn, “the proper course for testing the strength of the Ministry is holding the test on the floor of the House.” A Governor who finds a test impossible, he added, should state his reasons in writing.

What the nine judges held

Nine judges decided the case on 11 March 1994: Justices S. Ratnavel Pandian, A. M. Ahmadi, Kuldip Singh, J. S. Verma, P. B. Sawant, K. Ramaswamy, S. C. Agrawal, Yogeshwar Dayal and B. P. Jeevan Reddy, who delivered several opinions. Justice Reddy, for himself and Justice Agrawal, agreed with Justice Sawant’s conclusions 1, 2 and 4 to 7, and broadly with 8. Together the two summaries of conclusions say:

• A proclamation can be reviewed for whether there was any material at all, whether it was relevant, and whether the power was used in bad faith (mala fide). Once a challenger makes out a first case, the burden is on the Union to show the material existed. Courts do not weigh whether the material was correct or adequate.
• Article 74(2) bars a court from asking what advice ministers gave the President. It does not bar scrutiny of the material on which that advice rested.
• Until both Houses approve the proclamation, the President may suspend the Assembly but not dissolve it. Justice Reddy wrote that dissolution “is not a matter of course”.
• If the proclamation is held invalid, the Court can restore the dismissed government and the Assembly, even after Parliament has approved it. Acts done in the meantime stay valid unless a competent authority repeals them.
• If Parliament does not approve a proclamation within two months, it lapses and the dismissed government revives.
• Secularism is part of the Constitution’s basic structure, and Justice Reddy wrote that the Constitution is a federation “with a bias in favour of the centre”, but that within the sphere allotted to the states “they are supreme.”

On the proclamations before it, Justice Sawant’s opinion held those for Karnataka (21 April 1989), Meghalaya (11 October 1991) and Nagaland (7 August 1988) unconstitutional. Meghalaya’s proclamation came after a Speaker, acting under the anti-defection law, suspended five members’ right to vote in a confidence motion, and Justice Sawant found it to be mala fide. Because fresh elections had since been held, no relief followed. The proclamations of 15 December 1992 for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh were held valid. Governors’ reports before the President described the state of law and order after 6 December 1992, and the Court wrote that so long as there was “some relevant material” it could not interfere.

How the floor test has worked since

The Court returned to the question on 24 January 2006 in Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India. After Bihar’s election in February 2005, the Governor reported that no party, pre-election combination or post-election alliance could claim the 122 seats needed in a House of 243. A proclamation of 7 March 2005 had put the Assembly in suspended animation. On a Governor’s report of 21 May 2005 saying that attempts were being made to cobble together a majority by illegal means, the President dissolved it on 23 May, before it had met.

A bench of Chief Justice Y. K. Sabharwal and Justices B. N. Agrawal and Ashok Bhan declared the dissolution unconstitutional in a brief order of 7 October 2005. Reasons came in the judgment of 24 January 2006. It held that a party that prima facie has a majority has to be permitted to form the government, and wrote: “In both categories, ultimately the majority shall have to be proved on the floor of the House.” Fresh elections were already under way, with polling due to begin on 18 October 2005, so the Court did not restore the old Assembly.

Uttarakhand in 2016 gave the floor test a court-supervised form. A proclamation of 27 March 2016 had been set aside by the High Court. On 6 May 2016 the Supreme Court, in a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra, ordered a special session on 10 May with a single item, a vote of confidence. President’s Rule was suspended for the session, nine disqualified members could not vote, and the proceedings were videographed. The order of 11 May 2016 records that the Chief Minister received 33 of the 61 votes and lets the Union revoke the proclamation that day. Whether the proclamation itself had been justified stayed open.

What the Sarkaria Commission asked for

On 9 June 1983 the Government of India constituted the Commission on Centre-State Relations under former Supreme Court judge R. S. Sarkaria. Its report of 1988 made 247 recommendations. In a Lok Sabha reply of 7 May 2013 the Home Ministry said the Inter-State Council, formed in 1990, had accepted 180 of them and not accepted 65, with two still being carried out.

Chapter VI, on emergency provisions, ends with a list of recommendations numbered 6.8.01 to 6.8.12. They say that:

• Article 356 should be used “very sparingly”, as a measure of last resort, after all attempts to resolve the crisis in the state have failed (6.8.01).
• The state should normally be warned in specific terms, and any explanation it gives taken into account (6.8.02).
• In a political breakdown the Governor should first explore whether a government with majority support can be formed (6.8.04).
• Every proclamation should be placed before each House of Parliament at the earliest, and the Assembly should not be dissolved before Parliament has had a chance to consider the proclamation (6.8.05 and 6.8.06).
• The Governor’s report should be a “speaking document” with the material facts and grounds, and should be published in full (6.8.09 and 6.8.10).
• In clause (5), the word “and” between the two conditions for continuing President’s Rule beyond one year should become “or” (6.8.12).

Two of the Commission’s positions entered the law through the courts rather than through amendments. Bommai holds that the Assembly cannot be dissolved before parliamentary approval, as 6.8.06 asked. Justice Sawant’s opinion also traces the floor test to the Commission’s view that a ministry’s strength is best settled in the legislature, and Justice Reddy wrote that the Commission’s recommendations on Article 356 “do merit serious consideration”. The wording change in 6.8.12 has not been made. Article 356(5) still requires both a proclamation of national emergency and an Election Commission certificate before President’s Rule can run past a year. The Punchhi Commission’s later recommendations on the Governor’s role are set out in our article on the Governor.

A dated count of impositions

Sarkaria’s table is the most complete official list this article could find, and it stops at 11 May 1987.

• Entries 1 to 14 run from Punjab on 20 June 1951 (revoked 17 April 1952, Assembly suspended) to Uttar Pradesh on 25 February 1968.
• Entries 42 to 50 are the nine states of 30 April 1977, and entries 58 to 66 the nine of 17 February 1980, which together are 18 of the 75.
• Entry 75, Punjab on 11 May 1987, is marked in the table as continuing.
• In an answer to a Right to Information request analysed by Factly in 2018, the Home Ministry’s record had the March 2016 proclamation for Uttarakhand as the 115th since 1950. Uttar Pradesh had the most, at 10, followed by Bihar at 9.
• When the Lok Sabha stood dissolved, the Rajya Sabha alone approved a proclamation on two occasions, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat records: Tamil Nadu and Nagaland on 28 February and 1 March 1977, and Haryana on 3 and 4 June 1991.

Manipur is the latest case in the record. Its proclamation was issued on 13 February 2025, Parliament adopted the resolution confirming it, Rajya Sabha last, on 4 April 2025, and it was revoked with effect from 4 February 2026. Eastern Mirror reported that the 60-member Assembly remained in suspended animation, with its term running to 2027.