In a significant development, the Supreme Court Thursday made the centre responsible for the consequences if the allegations against Bihar Governor Buta Singh in recommending dissolution of the state assembly were proved to be correct.

Making it clear that there could not be any absolute immunity to a state governor for his malafide and ultra vires actions, the court said that it would examine the allegations of Singh's malafide action for sending the April 27 and May 21 reports that were the basis of the decision to impose president's rule in Bihar.

However, the court did not serve notice on Singh to answer to the allegations.

The Bihar state legislative assembly elections earlier this year saw a hung house as no party or combine could establish clear majority, and president's rule was recommended by Singh.

Though the apex court had on earlier occasions examined the reports of a state governor for judicial review, it was for the first time that reports of a governor had been made public, and personal, legal and factual allegations against a state head were permitted to be raised in judicial proceedings.

The five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice B.N. Agrawal, Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Arijit Pasayat decided not to implead Singh in the light of the contentions of Attorney General Milon Banerjee and Additional Solicitor General, Gopal Subramaniam, that a governor could not be made a party in view of the immunity from court proceedings granted to him under Article 361 of the constitution.

Brushing aside the contentions that even malafide actions could not be gone into by the court, the bench held that any malafide action committed by a governor was outside the purview of immunity enjoyed by him or her under Article 361, and the courts were certainly entitled to scrutinise them.

The bench said it was for the central government to defend the Bihar governor's action in sending two reports for dissolution of the house and "if it (centre) fails to meet the challenge, the consequences would follow."

It said: "Malafide acts of the governor have no sanction under Article 361 and the immunity also does not cover any unconstitutional action of the governor."

The bench said that supporting the president's proclamation to dissolve the assembly would be a challenge to the union government in the absence of the governor being made a party to the proceedings.

The court held that at this stage it had not examined the issue of malafide, which had to be dealt with in the main petitions.

After hearing senior counsel, Soli Sorabjee, P.S. Narasimha and advocate, Viplav Sharma, the bench made it clear that it did not want the hearing of the petition to become an academic exercise.

It said that it would deliver the judgement on the legality of the proclamation before the commencement of the first phase of the assembly polls Oct 18.

Accordingly, the bench advanced the date of hearing to Sep 20, as against Sep 27 fixed earlier. It fixed a strict time schedule for the hearing and said it should conclude Sep 29.

With the petitioners not pressing the applications for stay of the elections as the hearing had been advanced, the court disposed them off.