The Supreme Court dismissed a petition on Friday that asked the Lok Sabha Secretariat to direct that the President, rather than the Prime Minister, inaugurated the new Parliament building on May 28.
“It is not the court’s function to look into,” a bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and P S Narasimha said in dismissing the plea.
The petitioner, advocate C R Jaya Sukin, told the bench that no act gives the executive head the authority to inaugurate Parliament. The bench asked him to explain how the President’s role in addressing the joint session of Parliament relates to the inauguration.
“Please show us how the address is related to the inauguration,” Justice Maheswari instructed the council, adding, “Nothing to do.” It is not the court’s responsibility to investigate.”
The action to have new Parliament building inaugurated by the Prime Minister, according to the counsel, is a “complete violation of Article 79,” which states that there shall be a Parliament for the Union consisting of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People.
“The President is the head of Parliament and should open the building because the executive head has no jurisdiction over Parliament.” “The executive head is merely a member of Parliament,” he argued.
“We’ve seen Article 79. We asked the bench, “How is it correlating?” The counsel stated that no provision gives the head of the executive the authority to inaugurate the Parliament and questioned how the executive could decide on its own to have it unveiled by the Prime Minister.
As the bench began to dictate the order, the counsel urged the court to allow him to withdraw the petition if the court was considering dismissing it.
Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General, has stated that if he is allowed to withdraw, he will go to the High Court. “Withdrawal means he will go to the High Court and seek the same relief.” Instead, Your Lordships should finally conclude that these issues are not justiciable”.
The court asked the counsel if he planned to go to the Supreme Court and told him he couldn’t.
The petitioner responded that he will not appeal to the Supreme Court and asked the court not to dismiss it, stating that “dismissing the petition would mean granting the executive certificate.” That is not correct.” The bench then dismissed the petition.
