The Last Caution Before Emergency

The first statement that the cabinet ministers and some chief ministers issued from Delhi on the Supreme Court's decision came in record time.

- Kuldip Nayar

Its cyclostyled copy was available informally from the government's Press Information Bureau within an hour of the Supreme Court verdict. By then, news agencies had not even finished receiving the full text of Justice Krishna Iyer's 23-page order.

The only inference one can draw from this is that the leaders in the government had made up their minds even before the court's judgment was out. The statement was ready or nearly ready. This is confirmed by the way the conditional stay has been twisted to mean the vindication of the Congress party's stand that Indira Gandhi can continue as the Prime Minister and that there was no impediment in the way. (The decision was to take a positive line and the government information media were instructed accordingly.) One wonders what more the cabinet ministers and other supporters of Mrs. Gandhi could have said if the stay had been unconditional.

Shorn of propaganda, the stay given by Justice Iyer is not absolute. For, it does not allow Mrs. Gandhi either to vote or draw allowances. This is what judges have done in similar cases earlier. Under the law, Justice Iyer could go only thus far. As he himself said, the office of Prime Minister and its functioning were regulated by a separate set of articles of the Constitution.