The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to go ahead with the arguments on the merits of the question raised in Presidential reference on 2G case verdict and decide its maintainability and merit in a common order.
A five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia agreed to decide both the questions — maintainability and merits — together after a persuasion by attorney-general Goolam E. Vahanvati in his argument stating that the court need not to separate the two issues for recording of the arguments.
The bench having Justices D.K. Jain, J.S. Khehar, Dipak Misra and Ranjan Gogoi as the other four judges has been hearing arguments only on the issue of maintainability of the reference.
The bench had earlier said that it would first hear arguments only on maintainability of the reference on the question whether a judgement delivered by the SC could be a subject matter of the Presidential reference under Article 143 whereas the correctness of a verdict could be gone into under Article 131.
Under Article 143, the President can seek SC’s opinion on a legal issue not decided by it so far, while Article 141 deals with apex court’s appellate powers.
Mr Vahanvati had argued that the SC could not “foreclose” the option for the government to address the argument on merits of the reference along with the question on its maintainability. The court could decide both the questions simultaneously, he said.
Accepting AG’s plea, the bench allowed the parties to address the arguments on merits of the questions framed in the Presidential reference from Thursday.
According to legal experts, the consequence of accepting the government plea would be that if the apex court finds the questions raided in the presidential reference were not maintainable, it might return the reference “unanswered.”