Congress sends legal heavyweights to make Uttarakhand Governor Qureshi's case

Uttarakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi not only managed to challenge the NDA government’s move to remove him but the UPA-appointed head of state has also managed to rope in Congress bigwigs to argue for him in court. According to an India Today report “senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid - both law ministers in the UPA regime - and former Additional Solicitor General Vivek Tankha will appear for Qureshi.” The Supreme Court earlier in the day sent a notice to the Centre on Qureshi’s plea questioning Narendra Modi government’s direction for him to quit the post.  Referring to a previous case against the UPA removing NDA appointed governors when it came to power in 2004 Sibal said a governor could not be removed in an arbitrary manner. India Today quoted Sibal as saying, “A Governor cannot be removed citing he is out of sync with the policies and ideologies of the union government or the party in power at the Centre. Nor can he be removed on the ground that the union government has lost confidence in him. It follows, therefore, that change in government at the Centre is not a ground for removal of governors holding office to make way for others favoured by the new government.” Qureshi had questioned the government’s decision to send the directive through the home secretary, saying that as a Governor he was not an employee of the Central Government but served to the pleasure of the President. While many of the UPA-appointed governors who were asked to leave by the NDA government quit, Qureshi has been a lone wolf who filed a petition against the government with the Supreme Court, challenging the grounds of their decision. According to a Times of India report, he “termed the home secretary’s telephone call asking him to quit as “rank insubordination” and “audacious”. According to PTI, the Supreme Court has directed the Centre to file its response within six weeks and has Qureshi’s petition to a five-judge Constitution Bench, as reported by _Firstpost_.