Justice (retd) PB Sawant on Monday hit out at Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari saying that his actions have complicated everything after 2019 assembly elections results in the state.

When questioned about the overnight revoking of President Rule, Justice Sawant said, “The entire episode that took place at the night of November 22 and morning of November 23 is political vandalism and social vulgarism.”

Speaking to India Today TV on the floor test demanded by the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress to prove majority by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Maharashtra, Justice PB Sawant said: “India is a parliamentary democracy which means that the executive (Speaker of the House) is responsible for the legislative assembly. But Maharashtra’s Governor has acted unconstitutionally.”

“First of all, he has to constitute the Legislative Assembly by administering the oaths to each of the elected MLAs. Later, the assembly members have to elect the speaker and the deputy speaker. Thereafter, it is the responsibility of the Speaker of the House to conduct the proceedings,” Justice PB Sawant said.

“Once the assembly is constituted, then only the Governor can ask the party having a larger number of MLAs to form the government. But in this case, the parties are asked to form the government without constituting the assembly. This is unprecedented and unknown to parliamentary democracy,” said Justice Sawant

Justice Sawant said, “When the party with large number forms the government, then other parties, if they want can demand a floor test and the Speaker of the House has to immediately hold a floor test. A division is called when the other parties are not satisfied with the test. This means “Ayes” on one side and ” Noes” on the other side.”

Division is a method of taking a vote that physically counts members voting. This way it becomes easy to judge who supports whom.

PB Sawant further took potshots at the roles played by the two constitutional functionaries i.e. the President and the governor. “When both of these constitutional functionaries should have acted according to their conscience and according to the law… they are acting under the pressure of someone else is no excuse,” Justice Sawant said.

“Revoking of the President’s Rule could have been done in the daylight, there was no hurry. These are not dark deeds to be done in dark hours and there was no urgency about it as well,” said PB Sawant.

“And even after revoking the President’s Rule, the governor at first had to constitute the assembly by administering the oath-taking ceremony of all of the elected MLAs,” Justice PB Sawant said.

Justice PB Sawant further referred to his SR Bommai judgment which says that the majority has to be proved on the floor which means that whosoever claims to have the magic number has to immediately prove its majority without any delay.