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EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, Jan 22: The fifth meeting of the Inter-State Council began and ended here today on a discordant note with several states disagreeing with the Centre on the scope and extent of safeguards against the misuse of Article 356. So Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who chaired the meeting, attended by all Chief Minister, directed Defence Minister George Fernandes, who heads a sub-committee to look into these aspects, to evolve a consensus.
Giving a twist to today's deliberation, the ISC today included two more states, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan (both ruled by the Opposition) in the sub-committee.
Interestingly, Tamil Nadu today veered from its well-known stand on Article 356. It said that although it maintained that the Article be abolished, it was amenable to bringing about safeguards against its provisions.
Punjab, ruled by BJP's ally Akali Dal, opposed Article 356 and insisted that it should be repealed, according to Union Home Minister L K Advani who later briefed reporters.
Advani, however,insisted that the ``broad consensus'' that had emerged among most of the states favoured continuation of Article 356, but with certain safeguards. In interesting aspect of today's meeting was that several states demanded ``issuance of warning'' and a stipulated time-gap before invoking Article 356 on a state. ``The was one of the proposals in the ISC,'' Advani disclosed, but hastily added that the Government had not taken a view on it.
But in a significant development, the Council has approved the Sarkaria Commission recommendation that all state Bills submitted to the Centre for approval and lying with the President should be cleared within four months.
Admitting that in some cased the delay occured due to several ministries (the approval of all the Central Ministries is sought on such Bills) sitting on the matter, Advani held that if these Ministries failed to react in a stipulated period, it would be assumed that they had given their approval.
Vajpayee, in his concluding remarks, expressed concernover non-implementation of the resolutions of the ISC. He asked the Law Ministry to take necessary steps in this direction. ``There is an exercise going on in the Union Government to simplify laws and procedures and to repeal oudated laws,'' he told the gathering, adding that, ``I suggest that the Ministry of Law, with the assistance of other Ministries concerned, should also take up an exercise to fine tune laws to Central State interface.''Vajpayee accepted that points raised by West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu&Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh regarding additional safeguards in the use of Article 356 as well as regarding Bommai Judgment ``have again shown diversities in perception.'' Similar difference in perception, he held, had emerged regarding Article 355. ``However, we need not be discouraged.'' he said, hoping that the sub-committee would find a way out.
The Council also accepted Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister's recommendation to set up a standing committee for the National DevelopmentCouncil.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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