3.7. Judicial review and Article 356

The question of judicial review under Article 356 has come up for consideration before the Courts in several circumstances.

The first such instance was in the Kerala High Court in K.K. Aboo v. Union of India case. In that case the Court refused to go into the constitutionality of the proclamation under Article 356. The scope was considered in greater detail in a later case in 1974 where it was held that judicial review was barred for a proclamation under Article 356 as the Presidential satisfaction is basically a political issue and the Court did not want to go into an intrinsic political question. Thus, the Courts for a long time gave support to the action of the Central Government. Interestingly, none of them came for consideration before the Supreme Court.

The principle that such Presidential Proclamation is not immune from judicial review was first established in the case of State of Rajasthan v. Union of India and has been expanded in the case of S.R. Bommai v. Union of India.