President's rule (or central rule) is the term used in India when a state legislature is dissolved or suspended and the state is placed under direct federal rule. President's rule is enabled by article 356 of the Constitution of India, which gives the central government the authority to impose president's rule in any state if there has been failure of the constitutional machinery in the state.
It is called president's rule as the President of India governs the state instead of a Council of Ministers who are answerable to the elected legislature. The state governor is delegated executive authority on behalf of the central (federal) government. The governor normally appoints advisor(s), who are retired civil servants, to help in administration. Since the governor is appointed by the President of India on the advice of the central government, in practice policies are controlled by the ruling party at the center.
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Article 356 says that allows the president to dismiss a state government on the advice of the governor of the state or on his own if he is satisfied that the administration of the state cannot be carried out according to the provisions of the constitution. Once the elected government is dismissed;the President of India shall be the head of the state executive. As in practice, the President acts according to the advice of Council of Ministers at the Centre, the administration of the state is performed according to the policies of ruling party at the center.
Article 356 gave wide powers to the central government to assert its authority over a state if civil unrest occurred and the state government did not have the means to end the unrest. This is one of the articles that gave the Indian constitution some amount of unitary character. Though the purpose of this article is to give more powers to central government to preserve the unity and integrity of the nation, it has often been misused by the ruling parties at the center. It has been used as a pretext to dissolve state governments ruled by political opponents. Thus, it is seen by many as a threat to the federal state system. Since the adoption of Indian constitution in 1950, the central government has used this article several times [1]to dissolve elected state governments and impose President's rule.
The article was used for the first time in Punjab on 20 June 1951. It has also been used in the state of Patiala and East Punjab States union (PEPSU) and then during Vimochana samaram to dismiss the democratically elected Communist state government of Kerala on 31 July 1959. In the 1970s and 1980s it almost became common practice for the central government to dismiss state governments led by opposition parties. The Indira Gandhi regime and post-emergency Janata Party were noted for this practice. It is only after the landmark case of S. R. Bommai v. Union of India that the misuse of Article 356 was curtailed. In this case, the Supreme Court established strict guidelines for imposing president's rule.
Article 356 has always been the focal point of a wider debate of the federal structure of government in Indian polity. The Sarkaria Commission on Center-State relations has recommended that Article 356 must be used "very sparingly, in extreme cases, as a measure of last resort, when all the other alternatives fail to prevent or rectify a breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state".