Notice to Centre on U'khand Gov's plea bound to happen: Cong

Congress today said the Supreme Court issuing notice to the Centre on the plea of Uttarakhand Governor challenging Narendra Modi government's moves to ease him out of office, was "bound to happen".
"It was bound to happen...This was in pipeline that somebody is definitely going to challenge that. This has been talked about ever since the sacking of Mizoram Governor Kamla Beniwal.
"Governor is a Constitutional post. They should be given its due respect when the Government is dealing with them. It was not proper that some officer was asked to tell them to resign," AICC general secretary Ambika Soni told reporters here.

Soni's reaction came as the government's alleged action to nudge governors, appointed by its predecessor to quit, came under judicial scrutiny with the apex court today seeking response from the Centre on Uttarakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi's plea challenging such action.
The Supreme Court directed Centre to file its response within six weeks on Qureshi's petition and referred the plea to a five-judge Constitution Bench.
The apex court also issued notice to the Home Secretary Anil Goswami who had allegedly threatened Qureshi to resign from the post or to face removal by Centre.

A battery of lawyers that pleaded on behalf of Qureshi included two former Law Ministers of UPA regime--Kapil Sibal and Salman Khursid.

The Governor had taken the office on May 15, 2012 for the tenure of five years.
Qureshi said in his plea that Goswami had called him asking him to tender resignation and intimidated him that he will be removed from office if he does not resign.
Earlier, the NDA government had sacked 87-year-old Beniwal, the former Gujarat Governor who had a running battle with Narendra Modi when he was the state's Chief Minister.
The sacking had happened just two months before her tenure was due to end as Mizoram Governor.